The Raven's Swan
by inkheart9459
Summary: Emma is the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher and after being a freelance auror, all she wants in a little peace and quiet. Between the potions master, Regina, and a strange phenomenon causing some of the students to fall asleep and never wake up again, she's not going to get a break.
1. Chapter 1

Hey Guys! So. Harry Potter/Once crossover time. I started this piece as a part of a 30 day AU challenge. It was supposed to be a one shot. Didn't exactly work out that way, but come on Harry Potter and Once. It's just too good a combination to stop. So, as far as time frame, I imagined this took place in the same universe as the actual story of Harry Potter did, just about 100 years or so down the line, which I figured was enough time for everyone in the HP era to have retired and been replaced by our lovely Once characters. So their are mentions to Harry Potter characters, but only in passing really. That being said, I'm sure I've made mistakes on Harry Potter canon even after spending hours looking everything up and double checking facts, so go easy on me please and don't shout at me, helpfully pointing out fuck ups is always appreciated, though. So, that being said, read, review if you want, and enjoy.

ALSO: Thanks to strangesmallbard for the use of her headcanon about wifi in the Shrieking Shack, because awesome. And RoseyRueWritesSometimes22 for writing Pokey's lines. Because I just can't House Elf no matter how hard I try.

* * *

Emma's robes flowed behind her as she walked through the halls. She felt as nervous as she had all those years ago on her first day here. She supposed it was her first day all over again in another way, her first day as a professor. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Honestly, she had never pictured herself here over seventeen years ago when she had roamed these halls as a first year student. She hadn't pictured herself anywhere really, especially not with a decent paying job, let alone something so prestigious as a professorship at Hogwarts. She wasn't quite sure how she had managed, really. She'd always had a flare for Defense Against the Dark Arts and somehow it had resulted in her being here.

The man she was replacing was the first one to take the post after the curse on the position had managed to be lifted. Professor Graham had been her favorite professor, so much so that even though she was getting his job, she was sad to see him go. He had been a friend during some of her more lonely years at Hogwarts and an advisor and mentor when she'd finally found her niche. The memory of him clapping her on the back a few days prior and joking that she was his deputy back in the day and that she would be a fine teacher still brought butterflies to her stomach.

But tonight was the start of term feast and she wasn't quite sure Professor Graham was right anymore. Sure, she had a reputation for being quite the badass and good at what she did, but what did that matter to a group of kids? It hadn't to her at the beginning of her Hogwarts career, fresh out of the foster care system. And what did she know about teaching? Her reputation might hold her out for a little while, but if she didn't back it up she was doomed.

Worries ran through her mind continuously as she made her way up from her quarters near the Hufflepuff dormitory. The area brought her a slight amount of comfort, it was her home for seven years, she had a lot of good memories there. But still her insecurities plagued her mind.

"I can feel the nervousness wafting off you," Mary Margret said, popping up beside her randomly as she seemed to love to do. "Don't worry, nothing bad is going to happen, I'd have had a vision about it."

Emma tried not to roll her eyes. Divination seemed like a load of shit to her, but Mary Margret herself seemed nice enough. She and her husband David had taken her under their wings after Professor Graham had left, showing her the ropes and giving her tips right and left. She appreciated the help, she really did, but every time Mary Margret told David he would be fine because she would have had a vision about it if he wasn't, he always seemed to come back with an injury of some sort from the animals he was taking care of until the beginning of term. Emma was desperately glad she wasn't the Care of Magical Creatures professor. It seemed a bit too dangerous for her liking.

"Yeah, I guess," Emma finally replied, sensing Mary Margret was waiting for an answer.

They walked up to the Great Hall together in silence for the rest of the way. Even if Mary Margret's predictions sucked, she did have a way of reading people and giving them what they needed and Emma needed space enough to think, but a friendly presence did truly help.

Just as they were about to go in Mary Margret grabbed her arm and stopped her. She looked at her seriously, eyes a little cloudy. "She's a raven, but she's really a snake."

Emma's brow scrunched. "What the hell are you talking about, Mary Margret?"

Mary Margret blinked a few times and shook her head. "Huh?"

"You just said she's a raven but she's really a snake or something like that. What does that even mean?"

Mary Margret shrugged. "Don't know. Sometimes that happens though, I'll say things and not remember it. I don't know what that's about, but some books say it's a side effect of being in tune."

Emma just nodded reluctantly. "Alright." She'd just file it under weird things her friend did. There was already quite a list anyway. Like talking to squirrels. And blue birds. Yeah, this seemed like par for the course.

Mary Margret shrugged again and walked into the Great Hall, walking over to her chair beside David and sitting down, smiling like a goof at the man. Emma sighed and walked to her own chair, the same one that Professor Graham had sat in for years. She hesitated a second before sitting down.

Other professors slowly filed in. The kids were just getting off of the train at the moment, so they still had a little while to get settled. Ruby, the Transfiguration professor, flopped down beside Emma dramatically.

"So, you'll be my new seat mate, huh?" The dark haired woman smiled brightly. "Don't get me wrong, Graham was an interesting person to talk to sometimes, but it's nice to actually sit by another woman for once. Archie isn't much of a talker." She nodded over at a mousy man with carrot orange hair.

"Uh, yeah, I guess I am."

"How are you getting along so far? I know it can be a little overwhelming. When I finally took over after Professor McGonagall I about stroked out worrying about everything and living up to her reputation."

Emma snorted. "I know the feeling."

Ruby smiled kindly. "You'll be fine. Everything I heard about you sounds like you'll do just fine here."

Emma returned the smile, warming just a little to this new woman beside her. "Thanks."

The students finally started to file in, but the seat on the other side of Emma remained empty. Emma looked over at the seat questioningly. If she remembered right it was where the potions master sat and it wasn't like Hogwarts could be without a potions master, so they had to be there. Where exactly were they? She couldn't imagine Headmaster Gold would be pleased at their absence when he made his dramatic entrance like always. He'd been Headmaster long before Emma came to school and she had a feeling he might be Headmaster long after she was gone, too, and he had never been a man to cross.

"Where's the potions master?" Emma turned to ask Ruby who was exchanging pleasantries with Archie. Emma though he might be the Muggle Studies professor, but she wasn't quite sure. He didn't exactly leave much of an impression.

"Oh, Regina's son, Henry, is a first year this year. She basically bullied her way into leading the first years here just to make sure he was safe."

Emma nodded, satisfied with the answer. Regina, it seemed her name was, hadn't really been around much at any of their meetings. She didn't really know much of her beyond the fact that she was rumored to be even better at potions than the legendary Severus Snape. The day that she had announced that she had made and successfully tested a potion that provided a great deal of protection from most hexes and curses to the drinker for a few hours at a time was maybe the second greatest moment of her life. She'd gotten hexed a shit ton tracking down criminals. Bat bogey hexes were annoying but easily dealt with. Sectumsempra? Yeah, that one not so much. To make a potion that defended against such a wide range of spells, well, Emma was pretty damn sure the rumors were true. And that was on top of the other ten potions the woman had invented since becoming a potions master.

The kids started to get louder and louder as more filed in, talking animatedly about their summers with their friends. Emma smiled slightly, remembering that feeling. After second year, when she had finally managed to make a few friends in the middle of the year, the beginning of the year was all she wished for over the summer spending it with yet another foster family. In the beginning she had hoped that wizarding foster families would be better, and to an extent, they were, but not enough.

She smiled at the kids sitting down at the Hufflepuff table. Her house looked as lively and inviting as ever. It was weird staring down at the table instead of sitting at it. She supposed she would get used to it. She saw Ruby give a fond smile to the Hufflepuffs as well. Emma glanced down at the crest on the woman's robes. She hadn't been cataloguing houses of professors when she still was trying to remember names and job titles. The familiar gold and black shown proudly on Ruby's chest. Huh, the woman had struck her as a Gryffindor at first, but she supposed it made sense.

"I miss the common room," Emma said to the other woman.

"I know, so many good times around that fireplace." Ruby smiled and shook her head. "I had my first kiss in front of the door to the girl's dormitory." She laughed. "At the time it was the most exciting thing ever, looking back he was a horrible kisser. I should have just grabbed one of the donuts on the treat table and ran off."

Emma laughed. "Don't worry, my first kiss was worse. We were in the owlery. I got pooped on."

Ruby doubled over laughing. "Oh my god. Yeah, you win."

"I literally never heard the end of it from my friends."

"I'm not sure you'll ever hear the end of it from me." Ruby smirked.

"I will get something blackmail worthy from you eventually to counteract it."

"You'll never get anything out of me."

"A galleon says I can by Christmas."

"You're on."

They shook on it. Emma smiled brightly. She felt right at home yet again. The nervousness was still there, but Ruby had eased it some. She didn't know what it was about the other woman, but she was completely at ease with her. At least this time it hadn't taken her over a year and a half to make friends. Only a week or so. It was an improvement.

A side door opened and the first years filed in. Emma scanned their faces quickly. It was obvious which ones were muggleborns and which weren't. Their looks ranged from completely clueless to a little terrified, but they all had the same quality to them. She'd had the same look on her face once upon a time, she was sure. She'd known nothing about the wizarding world before the age of eleven nor had her foster parents at the time. They'd seen the fact that she'd gotten into some fancy private boarding school, not even reading where, told her good riddance and hadn't help a smidge after that. A woman from the wizarding equivalent of child protective services had shown up and taken her to Diagon Alley and bought her everything she needed for school while telling her some about the wizarding world. She'd been the nicest social worker Emma had ever met, but she hadn't told Emma nearly enough to make her feel like anything other than a lost sheep when she had been herded into a boat first year and subsequently herded into the Great Hall.

Gold chose that moment to sweep in from the other side of the hall just as the last of the first years entered. He took his place at the podium and went through the standard welcome speech. Emma tuned him out after a minute or two. It wasn't anything she hadn't heard before.

A presence slipped into the chair beside her. Emma glanced over to see Regina sitting in her chair, looking over at a little boy with brown hair and a cowlick that looked like it would never settle down no matter what was done to it. Emma's lips turned up at the corners. He was a cute kid, that was for sure. She glanced back at Regina. And the other professor was totally still in mommy bear mode over said cute kid, but that was to be expected she thought.

"Nervous?" Emma whispered to her.

She glanced over at Emma quickly, not even bothering to turn her head. "No, Professor Swan. Even if I was, it would not be your business. That's beside the fact that it is extremely rude to talk during another's speech."

Emma fought the urge to roll her eyes. Ok. So it seemed the other woman wasn't only a potions master. She was a stone cold bitch, too. Maybe it was just stress, though, with her son about to get sorted. She could understand that.

"It isn't anything that we haven't heard a thousand times." Emma smiled tightly.

"That is beside the point." She turned so just a tiny sliver of her back was faced to Emma, making it clear that she wasn't going to be interacting with Emma any further but still being subtle enough that the kids in the audience wouldn't pick up on it.

Alright. Yup. Stone cold bitch. Emma had decided.

Gold finally finished speaking. Granny stood up, holding the sorting hat reverently and dragging a stool along with her. The woman had been the school's mediwitch since way before her granddaughter Ruby had ever been born. The witch was no nonsense but caring and she knew what she was doing. She motioned up the frightened first years with a warm smile on her face.

The first girl, Paige, sat on the stool, facing her peers and away from the professors. The sorting hat stayed quiet for a long minute before shouting GRYFFINDOR! The girl grinned widely and flounced over to the cheering crimson and gold table. The sorting went quickly. Emma applauded as every student walked to their new house. If she clapped a little louder for the Hufflepuff students, well that was beside the point.

Granny finally called the little boy's name. "Henry Mills."

The boy rushed forward, clearly excited. Emma felt Regina tense beside her. She could practically feel the vibrations coming off of the other woman. The woman was so nervous she was starting to make Emma nervous too. She had to keep from rolling her eyes. Yeah, the woman had totally lied to her. No, she couldn't just be a normal human being and say yes smile sheepishly and go back to listening to Gold's speech. Of course not, she had to be snippy and berate Emma's manners.

The sorting hat settled on the little boy's head for barely a second before the hat again screamed GRYFFINDOR. The boy turned around to shoot his mother a huge smile before he shot off to his new house's table. Regina shot back a megawatt smile, face softening. As soon as Henry's back was turned though she scowled just a little for a second before wiping her face of all emotion. Huh, seemed like she wasn't quite happy with her son's sorting. She glanced down and saw blue and gold. Probably wanted him to follow in her footsteps.

She scrunched up her nose. Ravenclaw had never been her favorite. Most of them were just fine, but there were some who thought Hufflepuff was the stupidest house alive and treated them as such. She'd never appreciated that. She figured Regina Mills had probably been one of those people once upon a time. She did seem the type.

The rest of the welcome back feast went quickly. Emma steadfastly ignored Regina. Regina spent the whole entire meal watching Henry like a hawk. Emma rolled her eyes and turned back to Ruby to chat amiably. The woman was obviously way too overprotective and had some sort of stick up her ass. The fact that she was a brilliant witch and one of the most beautiful women that Emma had ever seen didn't make up for that. So Emma watched as Ruby pointed out students here and there and informed Emma which were trouble, which were the ones that could be counted on, which ones needed a little extra help, along with any funny stories she had about them. Emma found her stomach muscles hurting by the end of the meal from laughing so much. It was feeling she'd missed for a long time. Being a freelance auror hadn't exactly been a smiley business. But now she was happy and free again, she was home and she was making friends. She was content.

But the presence of Regina still lingered behind her long after she'd retreated to her quarters.

* * *

The next morning Emma couldn't force herself to go to breakfast. She was too nervous for that. Instead she stood in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. Her classroom. It didn't seem like it would ever _not_ be weird to think of it like that. It was always going to be Professor Graham's classroom to her. But for now she had to push that aside. It would be like it had in her seventh year. She was his teaching assistant again and she was in charge. That was how she would think of it. She could do that. She had already done that for a year of her life and she had been good at it.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly as the bell tolled to signal the end of breakfast. Soon her room would be full of first years eagerly awaiting their first lesson. Or maybe not eagerly. It was still school after all. But Emma thought that today she'd take it easy on them and give a bunch of demonstrations after explaining just exactly what Defense Against the Dark Arts was and why it was important. The kids had enough going on that a day to adjust would probably be appreciated. She knew she'd appreciated it. She'd also loved watching the demonstrations. They were just so _cool._

So as the first of the first years filed in, this one a class of Gryffindors and Ravenclaws, she sent them a smile and motioned for them to take whatever seat they wanted. Henry was one of the first ones in the room, sitting down firmly in the front row right in front of Emma. He bounced up and down slightly in his seat. Emma smiled a little bit wider at his excitement. He really was a cute kid. She wondered how he turned out so with a mother like Regina. She seemed the type of mother that would raise a stuck up brat.

Emma took a breath. She needed to stop thinking about Regina. She was her coworker. So she was a bitch. It didn't matter. She'd just have to deal with her. And first thing was first she had to stop thinking such catty comments. She shouldn't even give her more brain space than needed. Yeah, that sounded nice.

The bell rang to signal the end of class change and Emma took another deep breath. "Alright guys, settle down." She raised her voice to carry above the din.

The first years shut up immediately and stared at her. She always had loved that about the first years, so compliant. She'd be lucky to get her fifth years to calm down later today without injecting a little badass into her demeanor.

"Ok, so we're going to get started. So, anyone want to give a shot at what Defense Against the Dark Arts is?"

Henry's little hand shot up immediately. The wiggling increased just slightly, not enough to be embarrassing, but enough to be noticeable. Emma scanned the room making sure no one else wanted to answer before pointing to Henry.

"Yes…?" she trailed off.

"Henry Mills."

"Alright, Henry why don't you give it a shot?"

"It's the branch of magic that teaches witches and wizards to defend themselves from other evil wizards."

Emma nodded. "Good. It also teaches how to deal with dark creatures and how to defend yourselves from those as well. This year we'll do a mix of both defensive spells and work with dark creatures. By the end you guys will know all about gargoyles and ghosts and fire crabs and a slew of other things. But honestly, it's not just important to know defense for those illusive 'bad guys.'" Emma put air quotes around the words. "Some of your fellow wizards and witches who aren't exactly the next Dark Lord will try to hurt you and you must learn to defend yourselves. Plus, knowing defense well helps with all other aspects of magical practice. Magic, you see, is very intertwined. I'm not saying that understanding this class will make you a potions master, you guys should have seen my potions grades, but there are definitely common themes shared between the two that will help guide you in the right direction."

Emma launched into a half an hour talk on all the implications and talking points of their curriculum for the year, delved more into the importance, gave a few real life examples for each point. She was really thankful for her experiences outside Hogwarts. Explaining was a lot easier now that she had plenty of stories to demonstrate what she was explaining. After ten minutes of questions when the kids just stared at her expectantly once more Emma pulled out her wand smiling.

"Alright guys, now comes the fun part, real life examples of defensive magic."

All the kids gasped and sat forward a little more. Ah, to be young again and wowed at even the simplest of spells.

"I'll start with the spells that you'll be learning this year and at the end I'll show you some of the more advanced and interesting stuff you'll learn in the years to come, ok?"

They all nodded and called out their agreement.

"Alright, so, here's your basic _lumos_." The tip of Emma's wand lit up. "First spell you guys will learn from me. Nifty little thing, though I think flashlights are a little more practical sometimes. You know, if it was easy to get batteries around here." She shrugged. "But you'll always have your wand on you from now on, so it's convenient."

A few kids gave her odd looks but there were a few more that nodded along understanding perfectly. She catalogued their faces. Muggleborns didn't get as much flack as they did once upon a time, but it was a good idea to keep track of them and make sure they were getting along well, Emma knew first hand.

Emma turned and conjured a life like dummy. "This is one of the first spells we'll learn the countercurse to. If you guys don't like snot I'd look away." She cast the curse of the bogies on the dummy and immediately a stream of snot started to ooze from its nose.

The kids let out a collective ew. Emma waved her wand again and everything went back to normal. "That gets cast on you you'll have about the worst cold ever until you can cast the counter curse."

She waved her wand and the dummy went shooting back into the wall. "That's the knock back jinx. Good for knocking opponents off their feet, but we'll be learning how to block it as well as cast it so you guys don't have it used against you."

Another wave and green sparks started to flow from her wand. The class let out a collective ooooh this time. Emma smiled.

"Looks harmless enough right? Just a bunch of pretty sparks."

Everyone nodded. Another flick and the sparks went from trailing down to the floor harmlessly to shooting towards the dummy, lighting it aflame. The class gasped.

"But also, it can do this." Emma cast the spell again, raising her hand above her head this time. A ball of light exploded above her head and lit the classroom, bathing it in a green glow. Everywhere the light struck hidden objects were revealed. Emma reached in the secret compartment in her desk and took out an apple, taking a bite.

"It reveals hidden dark objects as well as being an offense spell. It's a handy little spell really. But that about covers most of the spells we'll be working on. Everything else we'll learn spell wise requires a dark magical creature, and I don't know about you guys, but I don't want to deal with a fire crab right off on the first day." She smiled as a few students who were in the know laughed.

"But however, now I can show you a few more advanced spells you'll learn later."

Emma took a deep breath and cleared her mind. She always had to be calm to perform this spell, it wasn't natural to her. She pulled up her happiest memory, that day at the beginning of third year when the friends she had made in second year and all pulled her into a hug and started asking her how her summer had been and talking about how good it was to see her and how much they had missed her. It had been the first time Emma had felt truly wanted. She smiled and raised her wand.

"_Expecto Patronum_." Emma felt the spell take immediately. She opened her eyes to see a black swan swimming through the air around her hand. The bird settled onto her shoulder and waited for her instruction.

"This is a patronus. Their main function is to ward off dementors. It's a high level spell that most don't learn until N.E.W.T. level classes, but it's handy to know. They can also carry messages between two people if there's no other way of communicating. And whatever shape your patronus takes is completely up to your personality. It's kind of cool really. I haven't seen any two truly alike ever."

She waved her wand and her swan disappeared. Emma glanced down at Henry. She thought for a second before speaking.

"Henry why don't you take out your wand and just hold it loosely in your hand for me."

The kid scrambled to comply with Emma's request. When he was ready Emma held out her own wand.

"_Expelliarmus_." The boy's wand flew to her free hand.

Henry stared at her with wide awed eyes. Emma smiled and handed his wand back to him.

"Best form of defense? Taking their wand as soon as possible. They can't do anything to you if they can't cast a spell. Or well, they can't do as much to you. But a simple petrifying spell will take care of anything physical they could do to you. Of course it doesn't work a hundred percent of the time. There are easy ways to prevent someone taking your wand, but we'll be going over those next year."

Emma glanced down at the clock. She only had a few minutes left, just enough time for one last demonstration. Might as well go out with a bang. Emma smiled and turned towards the dummy again. This had to be her favorite spell.

"One last one for you guys. _Confringo_." The dummy in front of her exploded in a ball of fire. Emma cast another quick spell right afterwards to contain the blast. When the smoke cleared there were only bits of fluff scattered around the place where the dummy had just been.

She turned back to the class who were staring at the area where the dummy was still with open mouths. "Needless to say you really don't want to get hit with that spell, but that's what strong shielding charms are for. That's for fourth year, though, so stay tuned for that. Any questions?"

All of the hands in the room shot up immediately. Emma laughed and tucked her wand back in her robes. She answered as many questions as she could in the time left but she ran out of time as the bell rung. Emma wished her students a good rest of the first day. They all filed out quickly talking loudly and excitedly.

Henry walked up to her. "That was so cool!" He exclaimed, jumping up and down on the balls of his feet.

Emma smiled widely at him. "The explosion?"

"All of it! But yeah, I think the explosion might have been the most awesome part. Do we get to learn that spell?"

"I don't teach it to you, kid, but I'm sure someone does along the way. Just don't go blowing up too many dummies. I hear they don't really like that."

Henry smiled back at her. "Maybe not. I'll see you later Professor." He darted out the door.

Emma sighed and leaned back against her desk. For a first class on the first day that hadn't been bad at all. Maybe Professor Graham was right, maybe she was meant for teaching.

Then again….

She glanced down at her schedule. The fifth year Slytherins and Ravenclaws were next. Maybe she should hold off judgment on her calling as a professor until after she had made it through her next class. They were going to be her most difficult class by far. Fifteen year old clever teenagers had their heads so far up their asses that they thought they knew everything. It was going to be a fun class.

But still, even with that, Emma couldn't quite stop smiling as her next class started to straggle in as she was setting up for their class.

* * *

Emma sighed. First day of classes were over. She had survived the fifth year class with relatively little bruising of her ego and only one detention assigned. Slytherins could be great friends or little shits. Her class was full of little shits, but they'd settled down after she followed through on her threat of detention. They'd settled even further as she systematically ripped apart every single one of the Ravenclaw's "perfect" techniques that they'd learned from their summer work. She knew what she was doing and she wasn't a pushover and the kids had begrudgingly respected that.

Now came the set up for the next day. First off she had her seventh year N.E.W.T.S. class. She was excited to demonstrate some of the more complicated stuff and actually get to spar with some students. But that required a lot of prior set up. She flicked her wand this way and that scooting tables out of the way. She conjured a few dummies for the first part of the class where everyone would be practicing their new spells.

Emma was almost happy with the set up when she felt a presence behind her. She whipped around, wand drawn to face whoever had walked into the room. She let out a breath and slipped her wand back into her robe sleeve when she realized who it was.

"Professor Mills, what brings you up here?" Emma asked. Her brain drifted to the one or two more things she needed to conjure to complete the set up behind her.

"Professor Swan. I came to talk to you about Henry."

"Oh? The kid seems rather good in the subject and really excited to learn. It already seems like he's going to be one of the best students in his class. What could you want to talk about?"

"You endangered my son today in class." Regina's voice was like ice as she stepped forward.

Emma scowled. "What do you mean? All I did was do a few demonstrations of spells we're going to learn this year and had a talk with them about what we'd be learning this year. Standard first day stuff, you know?"

Regina's nostrils flared. "You preformed one of those demonstrations on my son."

"What? I just cast expelliarmus on him. It's not exactly a harmful spell. Hell, he seemed thrilled to be involved."

"That does not change the fact that you cast a spell on a student who was under prepared for such a thing."

"Casting spells on students is sort of in my job description. How else am I supposed to teach them the practical aspect of the class? I can't exactly demonstrate the weak points in a student's shield charm if I'm not throwing a jelly leg jinx or two at them. I asked your son to help with a demonstration and he in no way seemed nervous or against what I was asking him to do. Besides, it was a simple spell that poses not even the slightest risk to him. He stands more risk standing in potions class than he did in my class today."

Emma could tell that that was the exact wrong thing to say. Regina stepped in closer into Emma's personal space. Emma held her ground and looked down at the slightly shorter woman and stared down unimpressed. She chased evil wizards for a living. This was nothing.

"Professor Swan, I take great care to make sure my students are in no danger while they are learning basic potions. I wish you would do the same. You not only cast a spell at my son, but an explosion, really, Professor Swan, was that necessary? In what way did that _not _endanger the students in your room?"

Emma felt her eyes narrow. "Lady, have you ever been in a real duel, a knockdown, drag out, no holds barred duel? Because let me tell you, if you have you'll understand exactly why I demonstrated that spell today. Do you know how many times I've had that spell flung at me in the heat of a fight? How many kids do you think in that room today will become aurors? They need to know what spell looks like. They need to know how to defend against it. And before you go off on your little endangering students lecture, I knew exactly what I was doing. I cast a shield charm so the blast was contained in that little corner over there." Emma pointed over to the corner that she hadn't gotten around to cleaning quite yet. "There was no danger. I use protective spells just like you do. So I would appreciate it if you would step off me and let me do my job and teach your kid to defend himself so he doesn't end up a bloody mess in St. Mungo's or worse."

Emma leaned forward progressively until their faces were inches from each other. She saw the fury in the other woman's eyes. It looked like she was contemplating murdering Emma right there on the spot. Emma wanted her to just try it. She'd get her ass handed to her on a platter. Emma wouldn't even feel sorry about doing it.

"I do not think you are doing enough. You will shape up your teaching practices or I _will_ report you to the Headmaster. You will not endanger my son!"

"Lady, you went through Hogwarts the exact same way that I did. Did it sound like I was doing anything different than the professors we had? No. Because I literally learned how to teach from Professor Graham. So kindly walk out of this room and I will continue to teach your son and I won't dictate how you should teach potions, got it?"

"No, I don't have it. Professor Swan, I don't think you realize how far I will go to protect my son. He is my only family and I will go to the ends of the earth to protect him, and if that means getting you fired then so be it. I will destroy you, or anyone who harms him, so thoroughly that you'll wish you would have never been born." A cruel smile curled onto her face. "But I bet you've wished that already. You can't understand what a mother would do for her child because you never even had a mother. Quite frankly I think your mother got off lucky, getting rid of you."

Emma saw red and started to shake. She wanted nothing more than to strike the woman in front of her. Not curse her. Beat her to a pulp the old fashioned way. It would be so much more satisfying. But by the time she made a move to swing at the other woman she was no longer in front of her. The woman was already walking out the door like she owned the place.

Emma started to curse and hex everything around her to pieces. Damn that fucking woman. Damn her to hell and back a thousand times. By the time she stopped the classroom was in shambles. Emma sighed, cursed Regina one more time and spent the rest of the evening repairing everything.


	2. Chapter 2

Weeks passed and Emma's rage faded somewhat. The other woman was a bitch to her at meals, only acknowledging her presence to snark at her and deride Emma's character before turning back to her meal and ignoring her. Each time Emma turned to Ruby and rolled her eyes. The other woman would nod knowingly and they'd go on with the meal talking about whatever caught their fancy that day.

Emma was actually settling into teaching quite well. She'd found her job as a freelance auror exciting and definitely worth her while pay wise, but teaching really seemed to be her calling. The students seemed to respect her, even the fifth year Ravenclaws and Slytherins, miracle of miracles, and they were all learning well and easily. Emma was in love with her new job. It was ever changing and the kids, especially little Henry Mills, were great. The kid reminded her a little bit of herself at his age. His passion seemed to be Defense Against the Dark Arts, but all magic fascinated him. Despite his mother and her egregious attitude he was well mannered and eager to learn and Emma had to consciously stop herself from favoring him with attention in their classes. Perhaps when he got older Emma would make him her little minion as Professor Graham had her during her school years. She certainly liked the kid enough that she was sure she could work well with him.

And so fall slowly morphed into winter. One day in early November the quiet passing of days was interrupted. At another lunch after one of Henry's classes Regina was giving her the fifth degree yet again. Emma swore if she heard one more time about how Regina was going to make her sorry if Henry was even vaguely _singed_ by one of the firecrabs she was going to scream. Emma just tuned her out, eyes scanning the room. Regina kept going on and on as her eyes fell on a Ravenclaw student stumbling towards the door of the Great Hall. It was near the end of lunch hour so many of the students were filing out to grab their books for the next class. She squinted and titled her head. Something didn't feel right, though.

She stood, not listening to Regina's indignant scoff, and walked steadily towards the student. When she was halfway there the boy she had been watching collapsed to the floor. She broke into a run and got to his side before anyone else. Emma gently turned the boy over and gave him a quick once over. There were no visible signs of distress on the boy. Emma pulled open one of the boy's eyes. They weren't bloodshot, but they stared up unseeing at Emma. She quickly checked for a pulse just in case, but the boy was breathing and his heart was beating just fine. She breathed a little sigh of relief. Emma checked for any other subtle signs of being cursed, but there were none. She sat back and lowered the boy to the ground slowly.

A crowd was forming around them quickly, the other professors were standing around her, looking on concerned. She had heard the shouts for someone to go get Granny from the hospital wing while she was checking over the boy. Regina kneeled down next to her and gave the boy her own once over.

"I don't see any signs of distress or of potion use."

Emma nodded. "I didn't see any signs of being cursed either."

Granny's voice came from outside the crowd. "Probably just another boy fainting to get out of a test. Damn, Weasley's and whatever candy they've come up with this time."

The crowd parted to let her through. Emma and Regina stood, backing away to let the woman have room to work. The older woman looked him over, looking for the same signs Emma and Regina had looked for while casting a few diagnostic spells. When she couldn't find any she sighed and stepped back again.

"Whatever he's done to himself all his vitals are fine. I'll take him back to the infirmary and let him come out of it on his own."

All the professors nodded their confirmation and started to shoo the kids back to their tables. Everything was going to be fine, they assured. Their classmate would wake up in a few hours, that there was nothing to worry about.

Except the boy didn't wake up. Granny ran every test she could think of, but nothing came up as wrong with the boy. She even sent off an owl to St. Mungo's asking for help in trying to diagnose the boy, but no one seemed to know what was wrong.

Still, it was castle gossip for only a few days as life moved on. It was a tragedy, of course, but life didn't stop for one fourth year Ravenclaw boy. Everything was fine. No one had cursed them. They weren't in danger.

That was until it happened again a week and a half later to a seventh year Slytherin boy on the way to class. And again two days after that to a first year Hufflepuff sitting at the dinner table who just passed out into his food. When the fourth child, a fifth year Ravenclaws, fainted five days after the little Hufflepuff, tensions sky rocketed. The professors were called into extensive meetings trying to figure out what was wrong. Granny was working overtime to figure out what was wrong, whether it was disease or curse or potion. But it took three more students fainting at irregular intervals all at different times until something finally broke.

"It's a modified version of a sleeping potion," Granny said at one of the professors meetings. "Except instead of your normal everyday sleeping potion this one is a sleeping potion that has been crossed with a curse. As far as potions go with definitely in the dark arts side of things. I've seen it a few times before back during the recovery from the war, but nothing since. It takes a great amount of skill to brew it."

"What potion do you think it is?" Regina asked, stepping forward from her usual position at the back of the meeting.

"That's the thing, it's not wholly the potion I think it is. Ampere's sleeping potion works immediately, whatever this is, it doesn't, but it has all the same symptoms. If someone has gone and modified it so that it works more slowly, then it would be a perfect match." The older woman pushed the spectacles she wore up her nose.

Regina nodded. "It's possible. I can test a student's blood to make sure. The potion will still be there, keeping them asleep."

Granny nodded. "I'll get you what you need."

A small grumpy man stepped forward and glared at Regina. Leroy jabbed a finger at Regina. "Why are you giving her the blood? She's the only one here that can actually brew the stuff."

A few other professors nodded along. Mary Margret, who was standing beside Emma, gasped. She turned to Emma and grabbed her arm.

"What was it that I said at the beginning of term again?"

Emma scrunched her brow and thought hard. She'd just filed it away in the list of weird things that Mary Margret did and promptly forgot about it.

"Something about a raven being a snake?" Emma shrugged.

Mary Margret looked at Regina's Ravenclaw crest for a long moment. "She's the snake. She's the one doing this! Earlier this term I prophesized that a raven would be a snake, and obviously it's her." She pointed at Regina's crest. "She's a Ravenclaw, but really she's like the worst of Slytherin and out to her hurt us."

A few offended noises came from the Slytherin professors, but everyone stared at Regina like she was the villain anyway.

Leroy again spoke up. "I mean come on, think of who she was before she came here. It all makes sense. Why would the Evil Queen just want to be a normal Hogwarts professor? This is probably some twisted scheme to oust Gold as Headmaster so she could have even more power."

Strangely during the whole thing Regina hadn't even blinked as accusations were thrown at her. Emma didn't quite understand. If she was the one being accused she would have been at the other people's throats vehemently denying the claims thrown at her. And what was it that Leroy was talking about? She'd never heard of what Regina did before Hogwarts besides inventing a slew of potions and she'd never heard her called the Evil Queen. Not that she didn't see where that comparison was spot on at times.

Killian Jones stepped forward. "It's not like she's not known for doing a few rather…questionable things because they benefitted her."

The rest of the room agreed.

Maleficent came to stand behind Killian. "And she only cares about herself and maybe her child. She wouldn't care about anyone else's kid. They don't pertain to her own happiness."

The room shouted their agreement this time. Emma stepped back. This was starting to turn into something mirroring a mob instead of a group of educated Hogwarts professors and Emma was starting to get a little freaked out.

"Check her potions stores. The evidence will be right there," the charms teacher, Jefferson spoke up.

A group started for the exit, but the Headmaster swept in, up until this time having been absent for one reason or another.

"Now, now, dearies, we can't all go trampling down there. Most of you know nothing about investigating."

"Well then, let's call the aurors." A faceless voice in the mod called out.

"Not quite yet, there's not need to cause panic in the community and the parents without needing to. We'll start an internal investigation at first." Gold's eyes sought out Emma's. Emma's skin started to crawl. She really didn't like the guy, he was a total slime ball.

"And one of our very own has quite the experience investigating, don't you, Professor Swan."

Everyone turned to look at her. She swallowed before speaking. "I do."

"Well then, perhaps you should get started and head down to the potions stores."

"You won't find anything there," Regina said, finally speaking up. "Even if I had done it, I wouldn't be stupid enough to take from the potions stores. And whoever did this couldn't have. The only one who can enter there outside of class time is me and I would have noticed if someone just happened to walk out with all of the ingredients for this particular potions. Most of them aren't exactly common."

Gold frowned at the other woman. "Be that as it may, Professor Swan why don't you start there anyway?"

"Alright." Emma nodded and walked out of the room slowly. Regina appeared at her side almost immediately.

"You can't come with me. It's sort of a conflict of interest."

Regina just glared at her. "Were you not just listening? There are enchantments to keep you out of the potion stores. You need me to lift them."

"Who says that I couldn't just lift them? Kind of my thing, you know?"

"Not these, Professor Swan, unless you can break blood magic."

Emma sighed. "No, I can't."

"Then you need me."

"Fair enough." They continued walking for a minute more before Emma spoke up again. "Why didn't you defend yourself back in there?"

"Wouldn't have done me any good. I've had more than enough experience to demonstrate that no matter what I would've have said back there everyone would have turned out against me anyway."

Emma looked over at the other woman and surveyed her face carefully. "Did you do it?"

Regina didn't look at her, only kept walking. "No," she finally said after a long minute. "No matter what I don't hurt children directly."

Emma wasn't quite sure, but she believed her.

* * *

She didn't find anything in the potions stores, just as predicted. Emma wasn't sure if she would have actually taken anything missing from the potion stores seriously even if there was. Regina was a brilliant woman; she had to be to be a professor at Hogwarts. It was an idiot's mistake to take ingredients from a store that she was the only one that had unlimited access to it.

So Emma left the potion stores and Regina behind. She didn't have any proof to let Regina off the hook, but she didn't have any to convict her with. Or anyone else for that matter. She didn't know what Gold expected her to do now. There wasn't any evidence to show who made the potion at the school. They were going to have to bring in outside help to really get to the bottom of this. Yet, she knew the man wouldn't cave after only a few hours.

Emma sighed. She supposed that she could try to investigate where the students had been slipped the potion. But since they had all fainted at different times and places it was hard to get an exact pin point on whether all the students had been at the same place when they'd been dosed.

She bit her lip. Well, she might as well go check out everywhere where a kid had fainted and go from there. Maybe talk to all of the kids' friends to see where they'd been immediately before fainting. If she didn't find anything substantial at least then Gold couldn't accuse her of not doing the task assigned to her. She'd start tomorrow and talk to some of the kids before class started. For now she wound her way back to her quarters, sighing heavily. She thought she'd left shit like this when she'd signed her contract to teach.

* * *

A few days later Emma felt like she was about to make a break through. Talking to the students had given her a lot of information. There wasn't anything immediately apparent between all of the students days before they had passed out, but still there was something pressing at the back of Emma's mind. She left it alone and didn't force it. She had found over the years of hunting down criminals that if she tried to force it all she did was force it father away.

So she walked around her classroom cleaning up from a demonstration before heading to lunch with her mind wandering over anything and everything it wanted to drift towards. She needed to grab the boggart she had in storage before her last class of the day. The third years were excited about this particular demonstration, but Emma herself wasn't. The last thing she wanted to see today was a continual ever changing stream of the most important people in her life telling her that she wasn't enough. Even worse she didn't want the kids to see that either, but she couldn't let them dive into everything without her demonstrating what was to be done. It wasn't safe. All she had to do was put Professor Graham in a bunny suit or something and it would all be good.

Finished cleaning she trudged to lunch. She could make it to the end of the day and then she could flee to her quarters and knock back a glass of fire whiskey and bury herself in a new book on Defense theory and forget all about boggart day. The thought cheered her slightly.

But her mood plummeted right down again when she entered the Great Hall and there was a crowd gathered around the end of the Gryffindor table that the first years usually sat at. It looked like another one had fallen. It was bad enough when it was older students, but the younger ones were worse somehow.

Emma strode forward, parting the students easily. When she got to the middle she almost gasped. Regina was on her knees cradling her son gently. Her fingers ran through his hair gently. She saw tears coursing down the other woman's face. Emma dropped to her knees beside the other woman and gave the boy a quick once over, but there was nothing different from the boy than there had been with any of the other victims. Whoever was doing this they were damn good at leaving no evidence.

Granny came bustling through the crowd to take care of the boy. Emma stood and walked in on the boys she'd noticed Henry was friends with in class. They were staring at their friend, terror in their eyes. Emma could clearly see that they were thinking they were next and they just might be if the professors didn't clear this up right now.

She bent down slightly to look one of the boys in the eyes. "August, I'm going to need you to tell me everything that happened before Henry fainted, ok?"

Regina appeared at her side. She glanced up at the woman who had scrubbed her face clean of tears and wore a determined look that bordered on possessed. She glanced behind her and saw that Henry was already being led out by Granny, his limp body floating gently behind her.

"We were in Herbology, we just got done with replanting the mandrakes and then we came right in to lunch. We-we were only here for like ten minutes and then Henry just says he doesn't feel good and he tried to get up and get to his mum, but he just hit the ground instead."

"And he wasn't feeling weird before he got to lunch?"

August shook his head.

"August, what did Henry touch?" Regina asked, scanning her son's place setting.

Emma looked up at the food on the boy's plate, but it was the same as what August and several other students had ingested. It wasn't the food that had gotten the boy. She couldn't see what Regina was getting at.

"Just his plate and silverware. He took a big gulp of pumpkin juice when we got here. He was really thirsty. He's always really thirsty after herbology, says being in the greenhouse makes him sweaty."

The puzzle pieces finally clicked into place for Emma. That thought that refused to appear to her finally manifested. Every single kid that had been affected so far was either in the process of eating when they fainted or had eaten not long before. Or not really eaten in this case, but _drank._

Regina's eyes zeroed in on the goblet that held Henry's pumpkin juice. She conjured a napkin and grabbed a hold of the goblet, looking down into the contents carefully for a long moment before lowering her nose to the cup and sniffing lightly.

"I don't smell anything, but I need to test it to make sure it isn't being masked by anything."

Emma just stood up and looked at Regina carefully. "Ok, I'll come with you."

"That's hardly necessary, Professor Swan. I know how to do my job."

Emma just looked at her.

Regina huffed, turned on her heel, and left the Great Hall. Emma took that as as close to permission that she could come with Regina. She followed the other woman out of the Great Hall and hurried behind her as the woman took the stairs to the dungeon two at a time. Emma wasn't quite sure how the woman managed not to spill as single drop of the pumpkin juice at their pace, but it seemed that Regina had super human grace.

They arrived in the potions lab and Regina set immediately to work. She set down the goblet, set a fire underneath the nearest cauldron, and set to tying her hair back into a neat bun. She looked up at Emma, appraising her quickly.

"You took up through N.E.W.T.s?"

Emma nodded. "Yeah, managed an Outstanding."

"That will do. Go get powered dragon's blood, mandrake root, and quartz crystal from the store." Regina waved her wand disbanding the blood magic on the potion store.

Emma hurried inside, grabbed what was needed and exited back to the bench Regina had set up. A cutting board and knife and a mortar and pestle were waiting for her. Regina was already doing something to the pumpkin juice to prepare it for testing.

"Mince the mandrake finely as you can get it without turning it into paste. Grind the quartz into a fine powder and then add the dragon's blood to it and then grind them together for a minute."

Emma nodded and set to work. Potions had never been her strongest suit, but she'd needed it to be good at defense, so she'd done her best. Hadn't been enough in the end to get her a spot on the aurors, but she'd made do anyway.

By the time she was done prepping the ingredients needed Regina had already poured the pumpkin juice mixture into the cauldron. She grabbed the mandrake from Emma and after nodding her approval of her chopping job she threw it in stirring three times counterclockwise before switching to three times clockwise and repeating the motion for a few minutes. When the solution turned bright blue Regina took a pinch of the quartz mixture and threw it in. The mixture in the cauldron turned a bright red before fading back to blue quickly.

Regina scowled. "There's some of the potion in the juice, but it's not a lot. Not nearly enough for Henry to have fainted that quickly considering how whoever made the potion has tweaked it to be slower acting."

"But if it's in the juice but there's not enough of it, where did the rest of it come from?"

Regina glanced at the goblet still sitting on the bench. "Go get more mandrake, Professor, I have an idea."

They repeated the process sans pumpkin juice. Regina dropped in the goblet right before she threw in the pinch of quartz and dragon's blood. This time the solution turned red and stayed red.

"So it's on the goblet?"

"It appears so."

"But how come nobody passed out if they just touched the goblets? I mean none of the house elves have fainted from touching them."

"Because touching them wouldn't have mattered. This potion has to be administered orally. It's quite clever, really, coating the goblet. Only a little bit at a time gets into the students system and combined with the longer time to have its full effect it wouldn't lead directly back to meal times as the point of contamination. But Henry has a habit of licking the rim after he's finished drinking so he got a much more concentrated dose so he passed out at the beginning of the meal rather than then end."

Emma looked at Regina carefully. "And you had nothing to do with this."

Regina looked up at her, eyes blazing. "Of course not! Do I need to remind you what happened not even half an hour ago? My son is among those passed out in the hospital wing."

"You could just be doing that to throw suspicion from you."

Emma suddenly found herself backed up against a wall with a wand at her throat.

"Professor Swan I'm going to say this once and I'm going to say it slowly so maybe your tiny brain will understand. I had nothing to do this. I would never, _ever_ hurt my son. Especially with this potion. Do you know what happens to the people who are put to sleep with this potion?"

Emma stayed silent and just stared at the other woman.

"No, I didn't think so. They're trapped in a burning room. No physical harm happens, of course, but they don't know that. They're trapped in their own minds being burned alive. Now, why exactly would I do that to my son?"

She stepped back and turned to the cauldron that was still blood red. "Contrary to popular belief, Professor Swan, I'm not the Evil Queen anymore. I haven't been for a long time, not since Henry was born."

She glanced back at Emma. "Besides, what would I have to gain from this little escapade? Even when I was the Evil Queen everything I did was for some sort of gain. What sort of gain does putting innocent children into a hellish state of torture gain me besides losing me the only job I've truly enjoyed?"

Emma looked the woman over carefully. There was nothing in her body language to betray a lie. She looked and sounded like she was telling the complete truth.

She stepped forward. "I believe you."

Regina turned to her fully now, surprised expression on her face. "You believe the Evil Queen."

"I'm not actually sure what everyone means when they call you the Evil Queen. I mean, I get that it's not good or anything, but other than that." Emma shrugged.

"Not good doesn't begin to really cover it, dear." Regina looked down at her feet.

"But just because I believe you doesn't mean that holds up in court. I need something that I can give to the others so they don't come down on you and then we never find the truth about who did this."

Regina looked up at her again before walking into the potions stores. She came back holding a vial of clear liquid. She handed it to Emma along with a dropper.

"Veritaserum." She explained when Emma looked down at the bottle questioningly. "Put me in front of them having dosed me with that and they won't be able to say a thing. But first put someone else under just in case they think I've brewed it wrong."

"I was just going to use legilimency."

Regina just snorted. "They won't believe that. They'll say I've put you under some kind of spell."

"Why does it matter? All that matters is that I think you're telling the truth and have proof."

Regina just looked at her levelly. "It matters because I want to be able to brew the antidote for the potion without someone screaming that I'm just trying to make the children worse. It matters because I'm your best hope of finding whoever brewed that potion. I know every single potions master with the skill to brew this potion, you don't. It matters because I'm going to investigate with you so I can make whoever did this to my son _pay._"

Emma swore in that moment if looks could kill whoever was behind this would have been dead, no matter where they were. She thought that maybe this was the side that people were talking about when they called Regina the Evil Queen, because damn when the woman was like this she was scary.

"Ok." Emma watched as the look faded slowly from Regina's eyes, replaced by satisfaction.

"Good."

"We'll go up and gather everyone then if you're really sure."

"I am."

"What if they ask you about something other than about whether you were the ones who slipped the potion into the kids drinks?"

"Then so be it."

Emma was taken aback. She had the feeling that this was a woman who liked her privacy. To throw away the possibility that that privacy could be breeched…Regina wanted to find whoever was responsible for this _badly_. Then again, Emma supposed, that if she had a child that was cursed by someone else she would be the same way.

"Alright. Let's go. I could use your help as soon as possible. You have more of a clue about this whole thing that I do."

"Of course, Professor Swan, the potions community sometimes can rather be quite…insular to those not deemed worthy." Regina gave her another once over quickly, a smirk pulling at her face.

With that the woman swept out of the room. Emma stared after her. She had a feeling that this was going to turn into her following the woman after a great many dramatic exits and continual insults to her intelligence. She sighed and started to follow the other woman.

* * *

Emma walked out of the staff room and sighed heavily with Regina at her side, still shaking off the effects of the veritaserum. No one had abused the fact that Regina was under the influence of the truth potion, but she had seen the temptation to do so on a lot of people's faces. But it had been worth it. They accepted that Regina had nothing to do with putting the kids under and Gold had approved them working together to find whoever the culprit was.

Regina rubbed at her temples as they made their way down to the kitchens.

"Are you alright?" Emma asked.

"I'm fine, Professor Swan, just a lingering side effect of the potion. I'll be fine within the hour."

"Alright. But if you need to go grab a pepper up potion or something, just let me know."

Regina shot her a glare. Emma held up her hands, palms out and rolled her eyes. If she wanted to be stubborn then so be it.

They arrived down at the kitchen a few minutes later. The elves were bustling about, cleaning up from the meal that had ended not too long ago and preparing for the next one. Immediately when the elves spotted them they bowed their heads and a few ran over to them to see what they needed.

"Pokey is at the mistresses service! What does the mistresses be needing Pokey to be doing?" asked a shorter than average house elf.

"The goblets, where do you keep them between meals?" Regina asked, hands clenching and unclenching at her sides.

"Pokey would gladly be showing mistress where we be keeping the goblets. You must be following Pokey please now mistresses."

The elf scurried over to a group of shelves that held all of the various plates and cutlery that were used for the meals. Regina's eyes widened at the sheer amount of goblets there were.

"You guys don't use the whole supply at every meal, do you?" Emma asked. There had to be about twice as many goblets as there were students and faculty on the shelves.

The elf shook its little head. "No, mistress. We keeps some for when Hogwarts gets more peoples to be feeding."

Regina nodded and turned to Emma. "There's a likelihood that whoever is doing that is using that fact to mix in a few laced goblets. That would explain why the time between each incident was so irregular."

"Who has access to the goblets?" Regina asked.

"House elves, mistress, and the staff, of course."

Emma and Regina looked at each other. "No one else?" Emma asked.

The house elf shook his head. "No one else mistress Swan! Pokey is promising! Pokey would never lie to mistress."

"Are there elves down here constantly that can attest that no one else has had access to the goblets?"

"Oh always mistress. We are never being leaving of the kitchens unattended—there is always much works to be doing."

Regina walked over to the wall of goblets. "There are too many for me to test individually. We'll just have to assume they're all laced."

"Is there a way to scrub off the potion?" Emma joined her, staring at all the goblets.

"There is, the special soap used to clean out cauldrons should do nicely."

The house elf that had been talking to them inched over to them. "Whatever mistresses be needing, Pokey will be doing!"

Regina nodded. "All of the goblets need to be washed with cauldron soap before they're sent out for the next meal." Regina turned to Emma again. "That should get rid of the problem of everyone fainting while we look for the culprit."

"Oh yes mistress Mills, Pokey will be getting all the elves doings it right away! We will cleans all of the goblets—protect the students we must. No more harm must come to them!" The house elf nodded in determination, and snapped his fingers. A legion of house elves set to work bringing the goblets over to the massive sinks. A tub of cauldron soap appeared by the sinks and they set to work scrubbing every single goblet until it shined.

"Well, now that that's taken care of, what do you say we go interview some of our fellow staff members?" Emma asked Regina.

A thunderous look crossed Regina's face. "Yes, why don't we?"

* * *

Three days and at least two interviews with every staff member yielded nothing. None of them were budging. They hadn't done it. And Emma's inner bullshit detector wasn't pinging at all. Which was also bullshit because it had to be one of them. House elves didn't lie. House elves also didn't miss anything either. They may seem like little idiotic creatures at points but Emma had been blindsided by more than a few over her years as a freelance auror. They were loyal to a fault to their masters and didn't hesitate to take out anyone who threatened them. And since Hogwarts was their master by default Emma knew that they would have given up whoever it was that was poisoning the kids if they had known in a heartbeat.

So whoever it was that had done it, they were a champion liar. Which didn't make Emma feel particularly good about her odds. But she'd put the house elves on high alert. If anyone were to tamper with the goblets they were to tell her immediately. Hopefully, if they hadn't been spooked off by the investigation whoever was doing this would get stupid and try again and they'd have them.

But that was a waiting game. And Emma wasn't good at waiting. So more often than not after class she found herself down in the dungeons in Regina's potions lab going over different theories of who it could be. Regina pretended to listen while she swept about the room mixing and grinding ingredients for the antidote of the sleeping potion. It was going to take a month and half to brew. The kids were going to wake up just before Christmas break if everything worked out to schedule. Emma didn't not want to be those kids with almost two months of work to make up, especially the older ones. But at least the school wasn't going to get into hot water for hiding the fact that they had almost ten kids passed out upstairs and hadn't informed their parents or anyone else for that matter. Gold really was a snake when he wanted to be.

"I mean, who wants to poison children? I mean I know there are a few professors here who are only in it for the money and prestige but still, you know? You can't hate kids this much and still actually want to be here no matter what. And it's not like any of them are connected in some way like their parents are super rich or influential. I've been through all of them and they range from rich pureblood to poor half-blood to middle class muggleborn. I just can't find the motivation."

Regina hummed her agreement as she stirred in crushed dandelion root into the potion turning it a dark purple. "Perhaps there is no motive, dear, beyond the need to hurt people."

"Do you think any of the professors are capable of that? Just being a psychopath for the hell of it?"

Regina glanced up at her, brown eyes slightly amused. "I'm sure if you think about that for more than a minute you'll come to an answer. Our illustrious Headmaster was raised by the remnants of the coldest, cruelest branch of the purebloods that have ever graced the face of the planet. And that's just for starters."

"Ok, alright, fine. You have a point. But what, is whoever doing this wanting to become the next dark lord?"

Regina winced a little. "I have no idea." She went back to stirring her potion, reaching for an ingredient and coming up empty. She sighed heavily. "Can you go get the ginseng? I can't stop stirring this for another few minutes and the ginseng has to be added before that."

Emma shrugged and waltzed into the potions store, finding the ginseng easily. She'd been in here a lot the past few days and had gotten the lay of the land again. Regina had organized her potions store much different than Professor Pan had when she was in school.

She popped back out and handed Regina the ginseng. Regina glanced at Emma and handed it back.

"Cut it into strips please?"

Emma nodded, grabbed a clean cutting board and set to work. They worked in companionable silence for a long minute. She handed Regina a stack of strips. The other woman nodded at her work and threw them in. The potion fizzled for a few seconds then settled back down. Regina continued to stir for another couple of minutes before stepping back.

"It'll be a while before anything more has to be done to it."

Emma nodded and walked out into the room and hauled herself up on one of the student tables to sit. Regina rolled her eyes and went over to her own desk to sit in a chair. Emma could practically hear the rant about how uncouth sitting on the table was that was going through Regina's head. A small smile crept onto her face.

Both women jumped as a crack ripped through the room. A house elf appeared in the middle of them. Emma hopped off the table.

"Pokey? What's going on?"

The house elf brandished a goblet. "Mistresses! Pokey is being bringing to you Master Killian! Mistresses told Pokey to tells them if wizards be tampering with the goblets. Master Killian has been bringing Pokey a goblets."

"Pokey, did he see you disappear after he gave you the goblet?" Emma asked, grabbing the goblet from Pokey and setting it on Regina's work bench.

The elf shook his head violently. "Oh no mistress, Pokey was being waiting until master Killian is leaving before Pokey came to be bringing it to mistresses."

Emma glanced up at Regina. She was already getting another cauldron ready and grabbing the ingredients for the test potion. Emma ran to the potion store and grabbed out some fresh mandrake and ran back out.

"Ok, Pokey, can you keep an eye on Killian and tell us what he does while we test the goblet? And make sure he doesn't see you Pokey."

The elf nodded enthusiastically. "Pokey will be being doing this for mistresses." He disappeared with another crack.

The two of them worked quickly and assembled the potion. When it was ready Regina threw in the new goblet and the potion turned bright red and stayed that color. Both women looked at each other.

"I think we've found our culprit."

Regina nodded. "Shall we go find him?"

Emma cracked her knuckles and drew her wand. "Sounds like a plan."


	3. Chapter 3

Brief mentions of rape, nothing graphic, but thought you guys should know.

* * *

The two women shot down the hallways, climbing the stairs into the castle proper. When they reached the entry way they stopped and looked around, finally realizing they really had no idea where they were going.

"Pokey," Regina said quietly.

The elf appeared in a second right in front of them. "Oh yes mistress, Pokey was being watching master Killian just like mistresses saids to."

"Where is he right now, Pokey?" Emma asked, fingering her wand lightly.

"Pokey has being seeing the master in his rooms mistresses-drinking and drinking all the fire whiskey he was being! Pokey saw there are many and manys goblets like this goblets I be giving you being in master Killians rooms."

The two women looked at each other, twin looks of fury on their faces. Not only had he planned to continue, but it seemed he'd planned to take out more than just a few students while doing it.

"Pokey, go get Headmaster Gold and tell him to meet us at Killian's rooms." Regina shot down the back hallway that led to the Caretaker's quarters.

"Thanks, Pokey," Emma yelled over her shoulder and she ran after the other woman. If she let Regina alone with the man for long there wouldn't be a man left to interrogate. She felt that with a certainty unlike anything she'd felt before.

She got there a second after Regina had and already found the door blown off its hinges. Emma stepped in the room and saw Regina had the man against the wall, eyes full of righteous fury and the man gripping at his throat trying to tear away invisible fingers as he was gasping for breath. Emma hurried over to the woman and laid her hand on the other woman's shoulder.

"Regina, set him down. If you kill him we won't get anything out of him about why he did this. And someone had to help him brew that potion, we need to get them too and make them pay for the kids." Emma glared up the pathetic excuse for a man.

Regina dropped him to the floor with no ceremony. He gasped in a few breaths before groaning.

"Bloody hell, love what is this all about?" He looked up at both of the women, eyebrow cocked. "I mean I've gotten this reaction before from a few women, but that was only after they had the pleasure of sleeping with me and then I never owled them back."

Emma aimed at the man's hand. "_Diffindo_," she said calmly.

The man started to scream as blood pour from a deep wound on his wrist. Regina smirked beside her. She kneeled next to him.

"I think you know exactly what this is about."

Regina walked over to a bookshelf and plucked a goblet off of the shelf. "Not very subtle of you. But then again, what should I expect out of a squib such as yourself."

"I don't know what you're talking about, love," Killian managed to grind out.

Emma cast a few healing charms to stop the bleeding, but not the pain nor did she heal the wound itself.

"What do you wanna bet when we test those goblets every single one of them comes back positive for the potion that's been putting kids to sleep? You see, you seem like a gambling man, but I don't like your chances right now." Emma motioned down at his hand. "And you see, Azkaban might be better than it was once upon a time, but that cut you have there? Won't be anything to what they'll do to you if I turn you over with an uncooperative mark on your record."

Hook looked up at Emma, a snarl on his face. "I'm not afraid of you, love."

Emma smiled. "Maybe not me, but everyone's afraid of dementors."

The man paled a little bit.

"So. Why did you do it and who brewed the potion for you?"

"I don't know."

"_Sectumsempra_." Regina smiled as Hook screamed, gripping at his shoulder that was now oozing blood. "Not. Good. Enough."

"I really don't know." The man looked up at them with desperate eyes.

Regina's wand twitched, but Emma grabbed the woman's leg and stopped her.

"How do you not know?"

Killian pointed to the same bookcase with all of the goblets. "There's a letter in the third book over. I got it from Jefferson who gave me all of the goblets. It told me what to do with them. I don't know anything else besides that."

"Why did you listen to what a paper was telling you to do?" Emma asked leaning forward.

Killian flinched slightly but looked up at Regina. "Because it said to follow the directions if I wanted to get revenge on her."

Emma looked up at Regina questioningly. She shot Emma a look that told her that it was a discussion for later. Emma nodded and dropped it.

She stood and walked over to the book case, extracting the book that Killian had told her to. A letter dropped out as soon as she opened it. She opened it and read it quickly. It said nothing more than "Fifteen years ago Regina Mills refused to save your lover because you could offer her nothing in return. You mourn her death every day. It's time to get your revenge. Follow these instructions and your revenge is guaranteed." in plain type face and then listed out the steps that Killian had to follow.

She turned towards Killian again and handed the letter off to Regina. "And you said that Jefferson gave this to you? You know nothing else."

Killian nodded again. Emma looked him up and down carefully, but he seemed to be telling the truth. She finally nodded.

"Ok. I believe you." She paused and looked down at his hand. "But you'll keep that as a souvenir."

"Ladies, I do believe a house elf was sent to tell me to come down here," Gold said from the destroyed doorway.

Regina nodded and walked over to Gold. "Here. Killian it seems is the first step in a vast conspiracy to poison the children. We're going after the next person." Regina glanced over at Emma before exiting the room.

Gold looked up at Emma. "Well, Professor Swan, I'm glad you live up to your reputation. I'll take care of our little…problem. If you would so kindly let me know when you find the next link in this chain, I would be much obliged."

"Will do." Emma quickly left the room. She may have almost taken the guy's hand off, but she was sure that Gold would do even worse and she did not want to be around to see it.

* * *

Regina whipped through the halls, her robes flowing behind her dramatically. Emma jogged to catch up with the woman. When she finally made it to her side Emma could barely slow down, the woman was walking so fast.

"Are you alright?" Emma asked, looking at the other woman.

"No, Professor Swan, I am decidedly not."

"Anything I can do?"

"Help me catch who did this to my son."

"Well, I mean that was obvious, Regina. I meant anything else."

Regina leveled her with a look. "No, Emma, there isn't. Just help me catch these bastards and I'll be fine."

Emma nodded once. That she could do.

They arrived at the charms professor's chambers. Regina raised her wand, but Emma grabbed her wrist. Not many students went by the caretakers rooms, but a great many students wandered the halls by Jefferson's rooms after hours since it shared the hall with the entrance to the library. They really didn't need a curious student seeing the ruins of an exploded door and coming to investigate. Emma quickly cast an unlocking charm, destroying all the barrier spells easily. Regina glared at her but pushed inside the room.

Jefferson sat in one of a small army of overstuffed chairs around a fire with his feet propped up on a table and a book in his lap. He looked the picture of peace until he looked up and saw Emma and Regina standing in the doorway, shutting the door behind them with wands drawn.

"What the hell is the meaning of this?"

Emma pointed his wand directly at his chest. "You're going to tell me why you gave those goblets to Killian and you're going to tell me right now or I'll hex you to oblivion."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"_Flipendo._" Regina sent the man flying back into the wall. "Would you like to try again?"

Emma stalked over to the man. "Believe me, you don't want her to get angry. Or for me to get angry for that matter. Killian wasn't exactly in good shape when we left him to Gold a few minutes ago. So. Why did you give those goblets to Killian? Why did you want to hurt all of those kids?" Emma put her wand under his chin.

"I didn't know what it was supposed to do! I just got the vial and the instructions to put in on the goblets and then give them to Killian. That's it. That's all I know."

"Where did you get the vial?" Emma pushed the wand harder into his skin.

"Maleficent. She handed me the vial and this letter and just smiled and flounced away. You know her, that's what she does."

"And let me guess, the letter said to follow the directions if you wanted revenge on me?"

Jefferson glared up at the woman. "It did."

"Where's the letter?"

"I didn't keep it. I burnt it after I was done with the task."

Emma looked him up and down. "Fine, but you're going to tell Gold exactly what you just told us and if you deviate one iota from what you just told us I will come back for you. And we all know my record isn't exactly clean when it came to capturing perps unharmed, especially if they hurt children, now was it?"

Jefferson paled visibly.

"Yeah, thought so."

"Pokey," Regina called.

Emma stood up and waited for the elf to appear.

"Yes mistresses, Pokey is glad to be serving you."

"Go get Gold from what is assured to be an _interesting_ interrogation of Killian and tell him that he needs to come and collect Jefferson again. And when you're done with that would you come back and watch Jefferson and make sure he goes nowhere? After all, he helped use you house elves to hurt the students."

The little house elf's expression darkened considerably. "Yes, Mistress, I will be pleased to be doing so mistress. If it be pleasing Mistress I can also be hurting Master Jefferson." He looked up at Regina hopefully.

The woman shot him a smile. "Not today, Pokey…or at least not too much."

The little elf nodded eagerly and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

The two women waited for a minute before the elf appeared again.

"I is telling Master Gold. He is saying that he will be here in a short time."

Regina nodded. "Good, thank you Pokey. You've been quite helpful today."

The little elf preened under the positive attention.

Regina shot Jefferson one more murderous look before exiting the room. Emma followed, but not before casting a jelly legs jinx over her shoulder and banishing Jefferson's wand to the other side of the room.

Again she caught up with Regina as they were walking up another level of stairs. Maleficent lived in one of the towers of the castle. Emma sighed at the amount of stairs she knew she would have to climb to get up there. Her classroom was on the third floor and her quarters in the basement. She didn't have to climb thirteen flights of stairs normally.

"Regina, what are we going to do about Maleficent? She's an animagus. She's a fucking dragon. We can't just waltz in like we have been and blast her to kingdom come. She'll just transform and burn the shit out of us."

"Language Professor Swan."

"My language doesn't change the fact that she's going to burn us to a crisp."

"I'm well aware of her abilities, Professor Swan. They just require a different tactic to handle. Follow my lead when we get up there and everything should be fine."

"Uh, I'd totally like to know what we're doing. Dragon, Regina, _dragon_. One time one of my marks had a dragon. Do you know how close I came to not getting out of there? Norwegian Ridgebacks are not something you want to mess with."

"That I do know. It's just a simple distraction tactic, Professor Swan. Maleficent still pretends to be my friends even though we are both well aware she is not. All you need to do is get behind her and stun her. She'll be watching me since she thinks that I will be the true threat. And if she does start to transform I'm sure you know the reversal spell."

Emma nodded. Yeah, she'd learned that one the hard way when one of her marks turned into a bear and she hadn't known the spell and had to climb a tree just to avoid him. The very next thing she'd done after stunning the shit out of the guy and turning him in was learn that spell.

"Then we have a plan and a backup plan. Good enough for you, Professor?"

"Yeah, good enough."

Another 600 flights of stairs later and they were standing at Maleficent's door. Regina knocked and pasted the fakest smile Emma had ever seen on her face. Emma would totally rather be on the other end of Regina's bitchy comments than on the other end of that smile.

Maleficent opened the door and when who she saw who it was she pasted on almost a carbon copy of Regina's smile. Yup. Emma would totally rather be facing a Norwegian Ridgeback right now. Then again, she might actually be facing one right now. She wasn't quite sure what type of dragon Maleficent turned into.

"Regina and Emma, back again for another interview?" Maleficent leaned on the doorway casually.

"Yes, Mal, just trying to be thorough. If Emma could look around your quarters while we talked we would be much obliged."

"Of course, Gina."

If Emma hadn't been watching carefully she would have missed the slight grimace that crossed Regina's face at the nickname.

Both of them stepped over the threshold of Maleficent's quarters. Maleficent led Regina over to a couch and sat down. Emma paced around the room while Regina drew Maleficent into a conversation, asking the same questions they had been for days now. She could hear the smile in Maleficent's voice as she feigned looking around the room. When she finally made her way behind the woman she glanced over at Regina. Regina met her eyes and nodded almost imperceptibly.

"_Petrificus Totalus_."

Maleficent's arms and legs snapped together and she slipped half way off the couch almost comically. Regina stood and walked slowly over to the other woman. She kicked her hard enough to knock the woman to the floor. Regina lifted her foot and pressed one of her stiletto heels into Maleficent's neck.

"I told you to _never_ harm my son or I would have your hide. And you have harmed him, indirectly, perhaps, but that is of no consequence to me. I know you could not have brewed that potion. You will tell me who when this spell is lifted and I will not put my heel through your windpipe and enjoy watching you suffocate."

Regina's eyes flicked up to Emma.

"_Finite Incantatum._"

Maleficent's body relaxed. Regina pressed her heel in just a little bit harder before letting up just enough for Maleficent to speak.

"I won't tell you a damn thing, you bitch," Maleficent snarled.

"You will. Or I will strip you of everything you love including your animagus form."

"There's no way you can do that."

Regina cocked an eyebrow. "Oh, there's no way. That's what they told me when I started working on the potion that protects against so very many spells. It was impossible to weave spells and potions together. Look where I am now. Who says I don't have a potion just waiting to strip you of any and all magic you have? What's to say I haven't kept that little secret up my sleeve just in case?"

Even Emma couldn't tell if Regina was lying or not. It was a damn scary experience.

Maleficent looked at Regina carefully. Emma could see the exact moment that the woman decided that whatever was in store for her if she confessed was better than whatever Regina had planned for her. "It was owled to me. It came with three sets of instructions. I opened the one with my name on it and handed off the rest of them as you've probably figured out by now. But I have no idea whose owl it was. I've never seen it before. It was just a regular barn owl anyway, not exactly special."

Regina looked to Emma. She nodded. The woman had told the truth.

"You see that owl again you will immediately tell all of us."

Maleficent nodded as much as Regina's heel on her throat would allow.

"And consider my not ripping you limb from limb the second I found out you were part of this plot to be my gift to you. But I'm not so sure that Gold will be so kind."

Regina stepped back and stalked from the room. Emma stayed long enough to get Pokey to get a message to Gold about the third conspirator and come back before she shot from the room. There was a story here that she needed to hear, she was sure of it. This whole plot centered around Regina and she needed to know why. She was sure that it would lead them to the person who was controlling this sick game.

Emma wasn't exactly sure where Regina had gone, but she had a good guess. She hurried down to the potions room. Inside she found Regina working quietly on the antidote, stirring in another dose of ginseng into the potion. She approached the other woman carefully. Quiet rage was so much worse than loud, throwing things, yelling at the Gods rage, so much worse.

"Regina…" She set a hand on the woman's arm.

"I promised myself when I found that I was pregnant that I wouldn't let Henry get hurt because of who I was." She bit her lip hard. "It seems I failed."

"I don't think you could have seen this coming, Regina."

Regina whipped around to face her. "Oh really, Professor Swan, I couldn't have seen this coming?" She snorted. "I've seen this coming for a long time now. Up until twelve years ago I was not a good person." She gestured to the antidote. "I had the capability to heal, to change the world with whatever potions I created, but did I do that? No. No I didn't. I horded my skills and only did what behooved me. Everyone knew that I was the greatest potions master of the age. Everyone came to me when they had no other choice to help them. And did I help them all? No. I only helped those that could give me something in return. I killed so many people through inaction that if I think of it now I get physically sick. Sometimes I even hastened the process, giving the people a potion I said would help them but was actually poison just because their death would benefit me more than them living. I made so many enemies during that time that by the end I wasn't sure that there was anyone left who wasn't against me. So, Professor Swan, I've seen it coming for a very, very long time."

"So that's why they call you the Evil Queen," Emma murmured quietly.

Regina laughed humorlessly. "I suppose it is. I was the queen of the potions world, but I wasn't a benevolent queen. I was anything but."

Emma squeezed the arm under her hand.

"And you know the worst part is that I thought I had gotten rid of her. I thought that having Henry banished all the darkness in my soul, but it seems not. It came back to me so easily. I haven't escaped her. She was just waiting. If I slip up she'll always be there to drag me back into the darkness. I _can't_ let Henry see that. It's already lost me so many people that I loved."

A few tears streaked down her cheeks. Emma hesitated for a moment before raising her hand to Regina's face and wiping away the tears there. Regina took a shuddering breath and more tears started to flow. Emma didn't hesitate this time to pull the other woman into her arms.

"It's ok, Regina. We all have a dark side. I know that better than anyone else. Kinda almost took off a guy's hand today, you know? Chasing bad guys that even the aurors are reluctant to go after kind of blurs the line between good and bad. And you were protecting your kid and all those other kids today. Our methods may not have been the greatest, but we were finding the bastard that did this to them. And no matter what they're worse than we are. Also, I'm pretty sure none of the people we talked to today would have given us the information that we need without a little…encouragement."

Regina's quiet sobs wracked her body for a few minutes before she drew in a deep shaking breath and pulled back, wiping her tears away harshly. "Go get the dittany, honeywater, and star thistle."

Emma stepped back and nodded, retreating to the potion store quietly. She came back with all of the ingredients and set them beside Regina. The woman set to work quickly shredding the dittany and mixing it with the honey water.

"Stir the potion ten times clockwise and twenty counterclockwise slowly."

Emma stepped up the cauldron. Regina carefully added the mixture of honeywater and dittany as Emma started to stir. The liquid turned rainbow, with the red in the middle of the cauldron and the other colors radiating out in order. Emma watched fascinated. She'd never seen a potion do something so odd.

She stopped stirring the potion after the twentieth time and turned to Regina once more. The woman was going over the star thistle doing something complicated that Emma hadn't seen before. It looked like she was shucking each little seed individually and throwing them in the bowl below her, but Emma wasn't quite sure.

"So, I'm going to ask a stupid question, but who in the potions field both has the skill to brew the sleeping potion and modify it to be longer acting and has a grudge against you."

Regina laughed lightly once. "There are a list of fifteen people who could make that potion. All fifteen have grudges against me for one reason or another."

Emma bit her lip. "Ok, so who's got a grudge strong enough to follow through with a plan like this? I mean I get you screwed over some people, but whoever this is had to be super screwed over. This plan reeks of a ridiculous amount of planning. They had to pick out everyone by hand to execute their plan and went through three different middle men just to try to throw off the trail. That doesn't exactly scream 'you stole some of my potions ingredients' or 'you wouldn't make that potion that could cure me of these boils' to me."

Regina stayed silent for a long time. She shucked a handful more seeds by the time she spoke again. "While I generally screwed over, as you say, a lot of people, I usually tried not to screw over other potions masters too terribly. They, after all did have skills that I could use if need be. But…"

"There was one guy who got super screwed over?"

Regina nodded. "I was rather…not fond of him. When he came to me begging me to save his brother I smiled at him and said no. The disease he had was easily fixable, at least for me, not for the idiots at St. Mungo's, that's how he ended up at my doorstep. I made it clear that the next time I saw him I'd make sure he couldn't reproduce."

"Damn, what'd he do to you?"

Regina leveled her eyes at Emma. "Think about it, Emma, I'm not exactly hard on the eyes. Men think I'm something they can take."

"Oh."

Regina nodded. "Frankenstein took it farther than most, dosed me with a potion. Though since I work with potions all the time I have some immunity to all of them. I was able to get my wand out and hex him to kingdom come and threaten him one last time before I passed out."

"Jesus, Regina, I'm sorry."

"No need, you aren't an utter slime ball." Regina sighed. "His brother was the dearest thing to him. When I refused to help him…I saw it. The same thing I knew resided in my eyes, that utter _need_ to make other suffer." Regina laughed once. "My mother never lived to see that all her lessons paid off. She was so ashamed when I was sorted into Ravenclaw, didn't think it would teach me the life skills to get ahead. Her version of life skills were hatred for those lesser than us and an almost compulsive need to use others to get ahead in life. No, my sixth and seventh years after she had passed away Gold finally managed to turn me into the master manipulator that she wanted for a daughter. He said he saw potential in me." She snorted. "I'll never know what was going through my mind back then, but I listened to him. I became the monster. To this day I don't know what motivation he had to help me down that path, but apparently he got it because he stays well away from me now."

"Fucking creep. I always knew he was."

Regina truly laughed this time. "We all know that, dear. Anyone with eyes can see it." She calmed down and nudged Emma aside. Regina stirred in the star thistle but the potion stayed the same. The color changes had always been Emma's favorite part of potions.

"But if anyone of the potions masters were to execute this plan, it would be Frankenstein."

"What do you say we pay him a visit then?" Emma asked as Regina continued to stir the potion.

Regina nodded. "In a few hours. There are a few more steps before the potion has to simmer for three days."

"Alright." Emma walked down the student desks and hauled herself up on one once again and settled in to wait.

* * *

Regina walked beside Emma, heels sinking slightly into the soft ground as they walked towards Hogsmede and the disapparation point.

"So, this guy, any tricks up his sleeve that I should know about? He turn into a hippogriff or something?"

Regina snorted. "No, Professor Swan, he barely can cast a simple curse. The only element about him that is slightly dangerous is his potion making skills. Don't touch anything and most certainly don't eat or drink anything he gives you and you'll be fine."

"Good to know. I've had enough to animagi today."

They arrived at the disapparation point a minute later. Regina grabbed her hand and held it tightly.

"Keep a good grip, Professor Swan, you aren't of any use to me if you're splinched over two shires."

Emma might be hearing things, but she could swear that there was some underlying care in that statement. But there was no time to ask or taunt Regina about it, they were off a second later. Emma hated apparating. She hated feeling like her insides were being ripped out at the same time as she was being crunched into a tiny little ball. But it was the fastest way to travel, so she put up with it when necessary.

They landed in front of an imposing building. Emma thought it looked like something from a bad horror movie, complete with a lightning storm in the background, striking at the many lightning rods on top of the gothic structure. Of course the villain of their story lived in such a place. It was just too damn poetic not to happen.

"What a place," Emma said.

"Tacky if you ask me," Regina replied, walking forward down the path towards the front door.

"Yeah, well, that was totally implied in my previous comment."

"Hardly, Professor Swan, but we'll work on your inflection later."

Emma rolled her eyes and started walking. They reached the front door a minute later. When it opened automatically for them Emma almost burst out laughing.

"How many more clichés does this guy need to pack into one place?" Emma muttered under her breath.

Regina just looked at her. "You haven't seen his potions lab."

"God, I hope I don't have to."

A man in impeccable robes swept down a grand staircase on the side of the room. "Ladies, what brings you to my fine home today?" His eyes landed on Regina and stayed. The guy didn't have a glare that matched Regina's in any capacity, but he was still trying to kill her with a look.

"Frankenstein, tell me, do you know of Ampere's Sleeping potion?" Regina took a step forward, voice silky and deceiving.

"Well, of course I do," Frankenstein scoffed. "What potions master worth his salt doesn't?"

"Then you're familiar with the hell that the person who drinks the potion is trapped in?"

"Yes." Frankenstein's eyes flicked up at down Regina's form, unimpressed at the tight grip Regina had on her wand.

"Have you brewed it recently?"

"Of course not. Why would I have any use for that sort of potion?"

Emma's eyes widened. That had been the biggest lie she'd sense during this whole little escapade. She drew her wand and had it pointed at the man a second later.

"Wanna try that again, buddy?"

"Who are you, the queen's new body guard?"

"Nope, but you make a move towards your wand and you will be on the floor before you can even so much as think of a spell."

"You know of the White Knight?" Regina asked, looking down at her nails, unconcerned.

"Who hasn't?" Frankenstein glanced at Emma and then back to Regina.

"Well, dear, it seems you've just met a wizarding celebrity." Regina looked up at Frankenstein a devilish smirk painted on her face. "And let me tell you, all the rumors are true, she really isn't afraid to use a little more force than is necessary. What do you think your pretty little face would look like with a sectumsempra cut marring it? Certainly you wouldn't be so popular with the ladies."

Frankenstein swallowed, but didn't back down. "I'd like to see her try."

Emma paused. From what Regina told her this guy couldn't charm his way out of a box. He wasn't betting on his own wand skills to get him out of this. It had to be something else, probably a potion. Her eyes tracked over to Regina. Maybe the exact same potion that she had been so thankful for when Regina had come out with a few years before. Emma scrolled through a list of hexes and jinxes that the potion didn't protect against and quickly ceased on one.

"_Reducto_." Emma pointed her wand at the bannister beside Frankenstein. It disintegrated into a thousand different pieces.

This time Frankenstein paled. Emma had nailed what had him so confident on the head.

"Now you and I know that reducto isn't covered in that little potion that Regina came up with. Now unless you want to your hand to look like that bannister I'd try again. Have you brewed Ampere's sleeping curse recently?"

"I haven't brewed the potion recently."

"_Reducto._" This time Emma aimed for the doors behind her, turning them to a pile of ash.

Emma cocked an eyebrow. "Next one is aimed at you, buddy. You were saying?"

An owl flew in the open door it landed on Frankenstein's shoulder. He glanced over at it nervously and then back at Emma. Emma looked at Regina and titled her chin towards the bird. Regina walked over calmly and took the little package tied to the birds foot and opened it. The owl sat on Frankenstein's shoulder and looked at Regina expectantly for its reward.

Regina opened the package quickly. Five galleons poured out into her palm along with a folded note. She unfolded it and looked up at Emma.

"It's the same type face from the letters all the other conspirators had."

Emma jogged over quickly and grabbed a hold of the owl's leg gently. She rotated the little metal bracelet on its legs until the tiny emblem was facing her.

"Regina, is that the Hogwarts crest?"

Regina looked closely and nodded. "It is."

"So this is a school owl. Holy shit, how many people are involved in this."

Emma looked up at Frankenstein. "Buddy, say what you want, but I think the jig is up. Our little friend here gave you away." Emma petted the owl's head for a few seconds.

The man stayed silent for a few long seconds before finally caving. "So I have brewed the potion recently. I don't know where it went. I just gave it to this owl when he was sent with one of the payments and didn't question it. I was just following the directions in the letter he came with the first time."

"And how often does our little friend come with payments?" Emma asked.

"It varies. Every few days or so, but it isn't consistent. Always with that same note that says congratulations on a job well done."

"When was the last payment?" Regina asked.

"Three days ago."

Regina's face scrunched in thought. "The one before that?"

"Five days before that."

Regina turned to look at Emma. "Both of those days are days that students fainted."

Emma's eyes lit up in understanding. "The payments are sent every time his potion works."

Regina looked back at Frankenstein. She grabbed his throat and squeezed. "Do you know what you're potion has been used for you imbecile? Subjecting innocent children to a level of hell they should never know."

"I didn't know I just wanted to—"

Emma cut the man off. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, get revenge on Regina for your brother, yada, yada. We've heard that line before about three times today."

"Actually, Maleficent has a totally different reason for hating me."

Emma just looked at Regina.

Regina shrugged. "For the record."

Emma shook her head. "Point is, you're coming with us and we're turning you over to Gold. End of story."

Emma grabbed one of his wrists and tugged him towards the door. The owl stayed put on his shoulder until Regina conjured a bit of lunch meat and handed it to the bird. It grabbed the food and greedily swallowed before taking off through the open door. Once outside Emma disapparated back into Hogsmede.

Once Frankenstein was turned over to Gold, Regina and Emma sat once again in the potions lab watching the antidote simmer. Regina had finally given up the fight for propriety and was sitting on one of the student desks beside Emma. Emma swung her legs back and forth slowly as she thought.

"Alright, so we know that the owl originates from here to pay Frankenstein every time a student faints. And they use the same owl every time. So. We could use that to catch them, but how? We got rid of all the goblets with the potion on them."

Regina stayed silent for a long while. Emma could feel the other woman's hands twitching slightly as she gripped the edge of the table, like she was looking for something to do with them, but there was nothing at the moment to occupy them. She'd noticed over the past few days working with Regina that any time she really was thinking or talking of something serious she usually started to work on a potion.

Emma placed her hand on top of Regina's. Her hand stopped twitching and Regina let out a sigh. A second later her fingers laced through Emma's. A small smile made its way onto Emma's face.

"There's a potion we could brew. It would mimic the same effects as Ampere's sleeping potion, but the drinker just wakes up in a few days' time, no worse for the wear. If the person who's doing this doesn't get a close look at the person they won't be able to see the very subtle differences between the two."

"Ok, we could do that. How long does it take to make?"

"A day and a half. We'll have to start tomorrow. It has to be started at exactly sundown."

"Ok. In that time we can find someone we trust to take the potion for us."

Regina nodded.

Emma's face scrunched. "Do you think it has to be a student? I mean how it's all set up one of those goblets could have totally gone to a professor."

"But what if we ask the professor who's doing this?"

"I honestly don't think that Ruby is the one behind everything. I trust her and I think she'd agree as long as we caught the son of a bitch who's doing this. Besides, if it's a professor the kids won't be able to get as good a look at her. It eliminates a lot of variables if it's a professor instead of a kid and Ruby is our best bet."

Regina took a deep breath and let out a long sigh. "Ok. Go get her, Emma, we'll inform her of our intentions."

Emma squeezed Regina's hand once before hopping off the table. "I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere."

Regina looked at her, face unreadable. "I won't, Emma."


	4. Chapter 4

Two days later Emma sat at dinner beside Ruby. She held her body in a forcefully relaxed position. A minute after Ruby took a sip of her pumpkin juice she would be face down in her food. They'd talked her into waiting until the last part of the meal before taking a drink. Everyone one else had fainted either at the end of the meal or afterwards with the exception of Henry. They wanted to keep it as realistic as possible.

Regina at her other side was just as tense, but it didn't play off as odd on her frame. Emma envied her. She wanted to be jiggling her leg or _something_ to get rid of this tension, but she couldn't.

Ruby finally picked up her goblet just as the first students were starting to make their exits from the Great Hall. She took a small swallow and sat back in her chair, pushing her plate slightly forward and smiling over at Emma. She leaned one elbow on the table and turned towards Emma.

"So, one of the Smith boys today tried to turn his toucan into a water goblet, let me tell you how far from a water goblet he got." Ruby laughed like she hadn't just taken a sleeping potion that would knock her out for the next three days. "The boy literally turned the poor bird into a dildo. I didn't even know that was possible, but apparently it is. Best part, was he didn't know what it was. And I was laughing—"

Ruby cut out in the middle of her sentence and slumped forward onto Emma. Emma swallowed hard and progressed exactly as she would've if she hadn't known what was going to happen. She lowered the woman's slack body to the floor. Regina was at her side in a second inspecting Ruby's body for any visible signs of foul play. They sat back when nothing was immediately apparent.

A few minutes later Granny came. They both saw as the older woman swallow hard as she took in her granddaughter slumped on the floor. With a deep breath she kept up her professional façade and went about her job. Another minute later she walked out with Ruby floating behind her to the hospital wing.

Emma and Regina looked at each other once. They had been watching the professors like hawks, but none of them had reacted in any way to Ruby's fainting. Gold walked up to them, murder in his eyes, a minute later.

"I thought both of you had this little problem taken care of," he snarled quietly.

"We do," Regina replied, voice barely discernable. "Just trust us Headmaster. We know what we're doing."

Emma nodded backing the woman up.

Gold glared at both of them. "Fine, but you will inform me before anymore stunts like this."

They both nodded. Gold turned on his heel and gathered all of the professors and declared that there was to be another meeting right after the meal. Emma glanced at Regina and shook her head slightly.

The both of them filed out with the rest of the professors but they slipped out of the group and made for the owlery quickly. Emma set up as many protection and invisibility charms and she could muster, with Regina adding her own just to strengthen the barrier. When they were done they shot another glance at one another and smiled slightly. This was all about to end.

They settled in to wait. The sun had sunk much lower in the sky before they heard footsteps climbing the owlery stairs. Emma tensed and drew her wand once again from the folds of her robe. Beside her she saw Regina do the same.

A golden head of hair came into view a minute later. Emma's face scrunched in confusion. In front of them wasn't a professor, but a seventh year student, one of Emma's best students at that. Ava Nicholas stood in front of them, looking around for a particular owl. Emma prayed that the girl didn't go for the owl they had seen a few days prior at Frankenstein's house. Hell, she was just a kid. How could she plan something like this? Just because she was in Ravenclaw didn't mean she had a head for nefarious schemes.

But then the owl came to her, hooting happily, and landing on her shoulder. The girl stroked the chest of the bird affectionately and started to tie her package to its foot. It was the exact same as the one Regina had pulled off of the bird two days ago.

"_Petrificus Totalus._" Emma finally cast the spell.

The girl hit the ground stiff as a board and the owl flew off in an indignant swirl of feathers. Emma lowered the shield charms and stepped forward.

"_Expelliarmus_." Regina cast just for good measure. Ava's wand flew towards her and landed firmly in the other woman's extended palm.

Emma walked towards the girl's side. "What do you say, Regina, another link in this unending chain?" She looked behind her at the woman.

The other woman was pale, almost all color had left her tan skin. Emma had never seen her look like that. She almost stepped back towards Regina, but held herself back. She couldn't step away from the girl.

"No," Regina finally said quietly.

"No?" Emma cocked her head to the side.

"She's the end of the chain."

"How do you know?" Emma asked.

"Because I made her an orphan."

The girl glared up at Regina with all the hate in the world in one look.

"How the hell did you do that?"

"Same way I always did, I wouldn't give her father the potion he needed." She looked down at Ava. "Twelve years ago, he came to me, Ava in tow, to beg me for the potion he needed. I think he thought if he brought the girl with him I'd have mercy on him. He was her only living parent. The man was a low level ministry employee with barely enough money to feed his family. He didn't have any money at all to pay me, so I sent him away, laughing in his face. He was one of the last people I turned away before I found out I was pregnant with Henry."

"Jesus, Regina." Emma's heart ached for the girl. Being an orphan was not an easy life. But at the same time her heart ached for those children downstairs that were suffering because of her. "But she's just a kid, how do you know it's her."

Regina just looked at her. "She's quite possibly the smartest girl's in my house at the moment. If anyone in this school could have done it, she's most assuredly on the list very near the top."

Emma cast a spell and the girl rose from the floor. "Well, why don't we take her to Gold and see if what you think is true really is." She started for the owlery stairs with Regina following closely behind her.

Gold sat behind his desk, fingers steepled, eyes roving the girl in front of him appraisingly. "So, Miss Nicholas, what part did you play in all of this?"

The girl just glared at the Headmaster and didn't say a word.

"Now, now, dearie, there's no need to be like that. Cooperation will only help your case."

Still the girl remained silent.

"Well, there are other ways if you don't want to cooperate. But I don't suppose that you want an old man such as myself inside your mind. It would be in your best interest if you just agreed to divulge what you know willingly, dearie."

Emma stood next to Regina near the back of the room. She was sufficiently creeped out at the scene before her. Judging from the tension that was radiating off of Regina, she was also disgusted by the scene before them. Maybe it hadn't been such a good idea to turn the girl over to Gold without getting some answers first.

Again the girl stayed silent.

"Miss Nicholas, no matter how good you are at occlumency you will not be able to keep me out of your mind. I'm a very determined individual. And while I'm in there I will not be kind to you, that is a guarantee."

Ava just glared.

"Ah, Miss Nicholas, you can't say I didn't warn you. _Legilimens._"

Both women swallowed hard. Regina's hand found Emma's and laced their fingers together. Emma could feel the slight tremor in Regina's hand. She remembered the mention of Gold helping to make her the monster she was and wondered if this was one of the things he'd done to her once upon a time.

Ava fell to floor, tearing at her hair. "Stop it!" she yelled. "Stop it, Stop it!" Tears started to stream down her cheeks.

"Oh, but Miss Nicholas I'm almost to what I need. That is unless you'd like to tell me of your own free will."

"Never!" The girl curled up into a ball and started to rock back and forth.

"So be it."

The next scream that the girl released was inhuman. The grip that Regina had on Emma's hand tightened to the point of painful, but Emma didn't mind. She was sure that the grip she had on the other woman was just as bad.

"I-I'll tell you!" the girl finally managed to sob out.

"Ah, there's a good girl, Miss Nicholas."

Emma's skin crawled.

The girl sat up almost at once and scrubbed the tears from her face fiercely. "I did it. I'm the one who set everything up. It didn't take that much planning. Everyone knows that she's screwed over just about everyone in the wizarding world in some way or another. It wasn't exactly hard to ask around a little more and figure out exactly who she'd screwed over and how. After that it was just figuring out how to cause the most damage to her. Her precious little _son_ is her weakness. So I contacted Frankenstein and told her to make Ampere's sleeping potion. I'd done enough research on it to know that only a few potion masters could even make it and that she would be implicated. From there it was just picking and choosing staff members that had the right set of skills to complete the plan unnoticed. Maleficent receives so much mail one more package wouldn't be anything of note. Jefferson could do the charm to seal the potion to the surface of the goblet. Killian had access to the kitchen and it wasn't at all odd for him to return lost goblets. And of course going through so many middle men reduced the chances of me getting caught."

"Very well, Miss Nicholas. I'm glad you finally managed to see sense and cooperate. The aurors will be here shortly for you and all of your conspirators."

Ava glared up at Regina. "It was all to get back at her. How you have someone so _inhuman_ on your staff and don't even bat an eye, it's disgusting. She's disgusting. She should be put down like the bitch she is."

Emma drew her wand. "_Silencio_." The girl kept right on talking at them.

"Thank you, Professor Swan, I do believe that was quite enough."

Emma nodded. "If you have what you need I'll be going now."

"Yes, thank you Professor Swan, Professor Mills."

Emma pulled Regina from the room by their joined hands. When they hit the bottom of the spiral staircase leading to the headmaster's office Emma waited for the phoenix statue to right itself again before she let a violent shiver to wrack her frame. Regina looked at her, concerned.

"That was fucked up. I mean I've seen some fucked up things and done some fucked up things, but Jesus Christ she's just a kid no matter how fucked up she is. You just can't do that to kids."

Regina just looked at her, a touch of sadness in her eyes. "Gold doesn't quite share your morals."

"That I got. Let's just—let's just get out of here. I think I'd like to go drown in a quart of firewhiskey and forget this ever happened."

This time it was Regina who tugged on their still joined hands and led them down into the bowels of the castle and to her quarters. She handed Emma a bottle of firewhiskey and grabbed two glasses. They walked over to a couch and sank down beside each other. Regina lit the fireplace in front of them with a silent spell and set the glasses on the table in front of them. Emma filled their glasses silently and they sipped quietly for the rest of the night, progressively getting drunker. When the bottle was gone Emma just looked at Regina, eyes bleary. One silent conversation later and Emma kicked off her shoes and curled up on the couch, laying her head on Regina's shoulder. Regina squeezed the hand that she hadn't let go of all night and laid her head on top of Emma's. They fell asleep together as the fire turned to glowing embers.

Emma spent most of her free time with Regina now. It'd been two weeks since Ava had been turned over to the aurors. Her old buddies had congratulated her on another well done job when they'd heard that she was the one that had caught the girl, but their words hadn't exactly inspired pride in herself. All she really felt was sick as they led a cuffed seventeen year old away with the rest of the idiots who'd helped dose the kids. She'd hung out with Ruby and Mary Margret some since that day, but they didn't really get it, that sick feeling she felt when she thought about catching Ava. They thought she'd done a job well done catching the bad guy. But really the world wasn't that black and white. Only Regina seemed to understand that.

That's why she found herself down in the dungeon yet again after classes had ended, chopping up another round of potion ingredients for the antidote as Regina stirred the mixture. The potion was putting on a veritable light show this time, sending up different colored bursts of sparks every half minute or so. Emma thought they looked like little fireworks. Regina had just rolled her eyes at the comparison and kept on stirring, but Emma knew Regina well enough now that she could see the slight twitch up of her lips. The other woman would never admit it, but she found her secretly amusing.

Emma handed her the last of the bloodroot she'd had to chop and set her knife down. Regina grabbed the root and sprinkled the little bits in slowly. The fireworks stopped and the potion turned an inky black with an iridescent sheen on top.

"That can't be healthy," Emma said, looking down with her lip curled.

"At this point, no it's not healthy at all. You'd die within a few minutes of drinking it." Regina brushed off her hands and stepped back, shucking her apron and throwing it on her desk chair haphazardly. "But it's only half way done brewing. After three days of simmering it will be dark silver and almost look like unicorn's blood and as we both know unicorn's blood is _very_ healthy."

"Yeah, but that shit has a price."

Regina looked at Emma with amused eyes. "Doesn't all magic, though?"

Emma cocked her head and thought about it for a minute. "I guess in a way. At least the heavier stuff. Lumos doesn't exactly have many consequences."

"No, that I suppose is consequence free."

Regina stepped forward and untied the apron from around Emma. She scowled down at the smears of blood root juice down the front of it. "Do you know how to be neat, Professor Swan?"

"Why is it always Professor Swan when I do something wrong but Emma any other time now?"

"Because that's how it is, Professor Swan."

Emma rolled her eyes at the evasion but let it slide. They'd gotten a lot closer in the two weeks that had passed, but still there were definitely topics that they avoided like the plague.

Regina cast a cleaning charm on Emma's apron and threw it with her own across her desk chair. She busied herself cleaning up the left over ingredients. Emma fell in beside her, running back and forth to the potion store as needed. She hopped from foot to foot as Regina scrubbed the cutting boards. She wasn't quite sure if she should ask.

"What is it, Emma? You're practically giving me anxiety with your fidgeting like that."

Emma's eyes widened. The woman hadn't even turned around to look at her. She took a deep breath. Well, might as well dive in head first now that she'd been caught.

"I, uh, was wondering if maybe you'd want to have dinner back in my quarters? I mean, I'm not the best cook or anything, but I think that I could manage to make us something." Emma fought the urge to rub the back of her neck as she waited for Regina's answer.

Regina put the cleaning board on the drying rack and turned around. She looked Emma up and down carefully, assessing. Whatever she was looking for, she must have found it because a small smile graced her face a second later.

"I'd like that, Emma."

Emma's return smile was dazzling. "Great." She stepped forward and grabbed Regina's hands. "Because I may or may not have had the house elves teach me how to make that apple cobbler you love so much just for this."

Regina laughed, truly laughed and Emma felt her heart stop for a second at the sound. She wanted to hear that sound a lot more.

"So that's where you were when you weren't down here." Regina smiled at her, fondly.

Emma felt a blush cover her face. "Hey! Sometimes I was with Ruby or Mary Margret. Besides, Pokey is good company and he makes really fucking good food."

Regina snorted. "Ah, there's your Hufflepuff side showing through."

Emma stuck her tongue out. "I've heard the noises you make when you're eating apple tarts when you think no one is around. You can't tell me you don't love food just as much as I do."

This time it was Regina's turn to blush. "You weren't supposed to hear that. Why didn't you clear your throat or something, Professor Swan? Are manners beyond your grip?"

Emma rolled her eyes and shook her head. "I didn't want to interrupt your private moment with the apple tarts. They might have gotten offended."

Emma stepped back and tugged gently on Regina's hands. "Now come on, hopefully if I do this right I can make an apple cobbler good enough for you to make those sounds again."

Regina just glared at her. "We'll see, Professor Swan." But she allowed Emma to lead her from the room.

They sat on Emma's couch curled up together later that night. Emma's cobbler hadn't been able to get Regina to moan at the taste, but her eyes had fluttered closed and Emma took that as win enough for the night. Regina's head rested on her shoulder and she felt the other woman drifting off slowly. Emma closed her eyes to follow her when a thought hit her and she sat straight up, jostling Regina awake.

"Emma? What is it?" Regina's voice was sleep roughened.

"She's a raven, but she's really a snake. Oh my God. It actually does make sense?"

"What are you talking about, dear?"

"Mary Margret right before the welcome back feast stopped me and went all weird and looked at me and said 'she's a raven, but she's really a snake.' I wrote it off at the time, because let's face it, she's a little off her rocker sometimes, but then she whipped it out again when they were accusing you."

Regina nodded, remembering.

"But it wasn't you. It was Ava. Ava was a Ravenclaw, but she was acting more like someone from Slytherin when she was plotting against you. It was an actual prophecy. Holy shit."

"Well, I'm glad your friend isn't completely useless," Regina deadpanned.

Emma snorted. "Yeah, divination doesn't exactly seem useful to me either, but Jesus."

Regina shook her head and yawned. "I suppose it's time for me to retire."

Emma looked at her with big eyes. She really didn't want her to go just yet. She thought quickly for a second before shooting up. She turned a second later and set up her laptop on the coffee table. Regina just looked at her perplexed.

"What's that?" Regina asked, looking at the device.

Emma looked over at her. "Never been out of the wizarding world, have you?"

Regina shook her head.

"It's a laptop. I have a bunch on movies on here."

"How do you have movies on that thing? I thought they came on disks." Regina vaguely remembered something about that from her muggle studies class years ago.

Emma laughed loudly. "You're really, really, behind the times Regina. Almost no one buys DVDs. Most people just download them on the internet."

"What's the internet?"

"Oh, I'll explain this all later, but we'll have to go to the Shrieking Shack for me to really show you." Emma typed in her password and let her lap top boot up fully.

"The Shrieking Shack? Why would we have to go there?"

"Because that's the only place around here that has WiFi. All the muggleborns figured it out ages ago that the place has WiFi and it's sort of been our little secret since then. We transfigured a bunch of couches and bean bags and have movie marathons every now and then."

Regina still looked a little confused. "Alright."

"Stay and watch a movie with me? I'm sure I can answer all the questions you have on 'strange muggle culture' if you have any."

"I suppose I can stay."

Emma smiled and clicked open her file of cheesy horror movies. Maybe her guilty pleasure would come in handy. She sat back and Regina leaned her head back on Emma's shoulder once more. An hour later when Regina was curled into her side barely peaking at the screen every now and then Emma knew she'd chosen well.

By the time the movie was over both of them were yawning profusely and Emma knew it was truly time for their date to be over. Emma walked a sleepy Regina to the door, smiling tiredly.

"I can walk you back to your rooms if you want."

Regina shook her head. "There's no need Emma." She took a small step closer. "Even in my tired state I think I can manage to find my own rooms."

Emma smiled and shifted a little closer. "Well, if you're sure."

"I am." Regina's eyes slipped down to Emma's lips.

Emma's heart beat a little faster. This was really happening. She had really read all the signs the right way.

Another step closer and Regina was just a centimeter from her. She was about to lean in the final distance when Regina's lips met hers. Emma sighed and sunk into the kiss. She couldn't recall any kiss she'd ever had being so perfect.

Regina stepped back after a minute, soft smile on her face. "Goodnight, Emma."

"Goodnight, Regina."

Regina slipped out the door leaving Emma smiling stupidly in her wake.

A month, twelve varied dates, and countless days tending the antidote later, the antidote was finally almost ready. Regina stood over it, frowning, concentrating hard on the color. She nodded a second later and stepped back. She drew a dagger out of her pocket and grabbed one of the mortars. She slashed her hand and held it over the mortar letting a good amount of blood collect in the bowl before she retracted her hand and healed the wound. She cleaned the knife and handed it to Emma.

"I need your blood, too."

Emma nodded, took the knife and sliced her palm. She hissed slightly as the blood started to flow into the mortar. Regina tapped her when it was enough and she stepped back and healed her own hand. Regina picked up the mortar and dumped it into the potion. Immediately it turned an odd clear color that reflected gold when the light hit it right. Regina lit up.

"Help me fill the jars. It's perfect. The kids will be up in time for Christmas."

Emma heard what Regina was really saying underneath it all. Henry would be up for Christmas. The woman had still bought the boy gifts, they sat under the little tree in Regina's quarters along with one little present wrapped in gold that bore Emma's name. She'd held out hope that the antidote would brew right the first time even though it was notoriously finicky.

She helped Regina bottle the potion quickly and they loaded the bottles onto a tray. Regina picked up the tray and hurried out of the room. Emma ran after her, winding their way to the hospital wing. Emma didn't know how the woman practically ran in heels and made it look effortless. Maybe she'd come up with a charm. Yeah, that was probably it. Though she really didn't mind running after Regina in heels. The woman's ass looked good even under robes.

They reached the hospital wing a few minutes later. Granny peeked her head around one of the screens to see what the commotion was about. She lit up seeing Regina with a tray full of bottles and bustled over to help her.

"I'll start giving it to them right away," Granny said going over to the first boy who had fainted with one of the bottles.

Regina left the tray floating in the middle of the room, grabbed one of the bottles and rushed off to Henry's beside. Emma rushed after her, knowing exactly where to go after this long. She'd come up here to visit Henry more often than not in the last month and a half.

The brunette uncapped the bottle when she was at Henry's side and tilted his head up slightly and tipped the potion into his mouth. She massaged his throat gently to help him swallow. When he'd downed it all she stepped back and waited. Emma could practically feel the nervous energy radiating off of her. She set a hand gently on the small of the woman's back. Regina relaxed slightly under her touch but not much.

A few minutes passed and she could feel Regina slowly deflating under her touch. Emma stared at the boy and willed him to wake up. She wasn't quite sure that Regina could make it another month and a half without her son. Emma had done her best to distract her, but there were still moments where the woman retreated into herself. The times she'd stayed over with Regina she woke up to her mumbling Henry's name in her sleep. He just had to wake up.

They both jumped when his eyelids started to flutter open. Regina was at his side, gripping his hand tightly in a second.

"Henry?" she asked gently.

The boy's eyes finally opened a second later. "Mom?"

"Yes, sweetie, it's me." She leaned down and hugged him gently. "Oh, thank god you're awake."

"How long was I asleep?" Henry moved to sit up, but had a difficult time of it. Regina helped lift him up and lean up back against the headboard.

"For almost a month and a half, darling."

Henry shivered. "Felt like a lot longer."

"I know, sweetie, the effects of the sleeping potion you were under aren't pleasant. But you're awake now." Regina smiled brightly.

"Did you figure out who did it?"

Regina nodded, suddenly solemn. "It was one of the students, Ava Nicholas."

Henry paled a little. "A student. Why?"

"She wanted revenge on me, Henry." Regina's eyes turned towards the bed spread.

"Oh." He nodded, understanding.

"But Professor Swan and I figured it out and now everything's fine now that the antidote I brewed worked."

Emma took that as her cue to step forward. "Hey, kid, it's good to see you up and about."

Henry smiled brightly. "Hey Professor Swan. Did you guys do anything cool while I was out?"

Emma laughed. "Don't worry, I'll do all the demonstrations for you so you won't have missed anything cool."

Regina shot her a grateful look.

"Cool!" Henry shot a slightly less enthusiastic look at his mom. "You'll do the same, won't you mom?"

"Of course, dear."

"Good." Henry yawned widely. "I'm tired. How can I be tired, I just slept for a month and a half?" He looked at his mom for the answer.

"The sleeping potion weakens your body, added to the fact that you're body isn't used to all the activity anymore. You'll be easily exhausted for a couple weeks, but then you'll be fine."

Henry nodded. "Ok." He smiled at his mom and squeezed the hand that was still holding his. "Thanks for waking me up, Mom."

"Always, my sweet prince."

They stayed talking to the boy until he fell back to sleep. Emma smiled the entire time, watching Regina and Henry interacting effortlessly. A part of her wanted this small little family to be part of hers. A large part of her. And maybe someday they would be.

After Regina tucked him in securely again they exited the hospital wing. Granny sent Regina a thankful wave as she bustled around tending to all the other students who had woken up. Emma grabbed Regina's hand and squeezed it. Regina looked over at her with happy tears in her eyes.

"He's awake."

Emma nodded. "He is. And he's just fine."

Regina leaned on her as they made their way back to Regina's rooms. Emma pulled Regina down on the couch they'd made a habit of snuggling on. Regina curled into her side, arms circling around her middle. They stayed silent for a while. Emma let her finger card through Regina's short, silky hair. Regina relaxed slowly into her, almost purring.

"You know, I've heard of a potion needing the blood of the maker for some of the more advanced ones, but why did you need my blood?" Emma asked quietly after a while.

"The final ingredient was the blood of those in love," Regina mumbled, half asleep.

Emma beamed. Maybe Regina and Henry would be part of her family sooner than she thought.


End file.
